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VI Cases

Helping Facebook Prove that Branding and Sales go Hand in Hand

Through observing the campaigns of its clients, Facebook realised that many of them followed rather traditional marketing approaches: First raise awareness. Then build desire and convert that into sales.

  • 800
    test drives booked
  • 32%
    increase in Model awareness
  • 8%
    increase in Model favorability

Having marketing efficiency at the core of their business, Facebook asked us to validate an idea: can brand building and sales success be achieved at the same time? We asked our client BMW whether they would like to join us in this journey. We got excited when they presented us the opportunity to test the concept with the launch campaign for the brandnew BMW X2 in a social-first manner.

Joined forces with influencers

Two weeks before the actual product launch, we spent the day in a garage collaboration with selected influencers. The job: Connect with the car, let creativity flow, and create your own style of photos and videos. We were blown away by the uniqueness and beauty of the results.  The photos from this day served as the basis for the ads we created and, eventually, for digital out-of-home billboards. Throughout the course of the campaign, we learned that the more “editorial” the imagery, the better the performance in generating test drive leads. 

Using more than the algorithm

The media side of the campaign was based on insights from previous launches. We started with broad targeting on Instagram, letting the creatives and algorithm do their work, while carefully tracking lead conversions, brand impact of the ads, and optimising both continuously. That was enabled by a new monitoring concept, allowing us to differentiate and act on the different paths to conversion.

The campaign raised model awareness by 32%, increased favorability by 8%, and generated more than 800 test drives. This was in 2018. The thinking and methods behind this idea are what Facebook now calls Performance Branding. And we use it for all BMW campaigns ever since. 

Curious? Let's have a chat.

Birgit Sedlmayer-Gansinger

Business Development