Dacia - "We did the maths": Case Study

Newsworks Awards: Best newspaper campaign

“We did the maths”

Manning Gottlieb OMD + Daily Telegraph = fantastic sales results for Dacia UK

Executive summary

The use of newspapers formed the backbone of the Dacia UK launch. By tapping into the unique relationship between

reader and newspaper, we had the opportunity to drive a deeper dialogue with a predisposed audience, educating them

on the cars benefits. By launching with a high impact newspaper campaign, we were able to hit the ambitious pre-order

targets set by the client and ensure brand awareness was high before the car had even launched in the UK.

Background and objectives

In January 2013, Dacia had the challenging task of launching a new car brand in the UK. In Europe, Dacia is a well-

established brand with strong market share. In the UK, we had the challenge of not only launching a new car brand in a

saturated market, but the task of establishing a unique brand identity. Our objective was to raise brand awareness but it

was imperative that we drove differentiation from our competitors.

The Dacia Duster was going to be available in the UK from January 2013 but we wanted to start driving familiarity with our

core audience as early as possible. By driving familiarity, we would be able to increase consideration with our target

audience. After interrogating the competitor landscape and target audience, newspapers were identified as the key

medium for this campaign (TGI 2012, index 212).

By using Newsbrands 6 months prior to the date of launch we were able to take advantage of a ‘bottom up’ approach and

establish a relationship with our core audience, talking to them to in a familiar and ‘trusted voice’ whilst building a

community of advocates. It was important for us to generate pre-orders and prime the brand for a launch in 2013.

Insight and strategy

According to TGI 2013, our key audience insight was that our audience are cautious, money saving individuals who take

their “time to thoroughly research products before they buy them” (Index 160) and “that the economic outlook weighs

heavily on their mind” (TGI Index 122). Our audience was named ‘Safety Dad’s’ and whilst we knew that their car was

important to them, we also knew that it was a means to get them from A to B. We defined our core audience as 40+ ABC1

men who were seeking to buy a car in the next 2 years. A car is not a status symbol; the car has to be good value and user

reviews and opinions are important to them. We knew that when they engaged with their chosen media that it had to

make them think. The communications strategy across all media became the ‘Witty voice of reason’. The key pillars in the

strategy were to announce the launch of the Dacia car brand, ensuring that we tapped into “witty points of view” across

communications and communicate the cost efficiencies of the car wherever possible. Once we had identified the audience

and devised our communications strategy, we were able to identify the Daily Telegraph as a key title for this audience. The

title indexed at 241 against our Dacia audience and we knew that running a partnership was an opportunity for us to drive

a deeper dialogue with our audience, educating them on the benefits of Dacia. By running a partnership before the launch

of the car, it would allow us to test the activity and gain audience insights before launch therefore shaping our launch

activity in January 2013.

The plan

We knew that we had to launch the campaign with a bang. We wanted to run a format which was unique and would make

our audience sit up and take notice. In addition, it was important to communicate the great value of the car. Running a

front page sticker on the day of launch on the Daily Telegraph masthead was a sure-fire way to ensure our audience

noticed our brand as it would be seen on the newsstands. We also wanted to drive engagement by including a

competition. The front page sticker became a competition to win the car and by including a scratch mechanism in the

format, we were able to convey the competitive price of the car. To continue the conversation, we ran further high impact

formats on the front and back pages of the main section of the paper, resulting in a semi cover wrap of the paper. In

addition, we knew that our audience were crossword puzzle enthusiasts (indexing at over 238) so we also sponsored the

Sudoku page and the crossword thus tapping into all of the Daily Telegraphs opportunities to engage with their readers.

Within the main body of the paper, we coverwrapped the ‘Weekend’ section. We combined the high impact cover of the

Weekend section with an educational piece on the inside and back covers, ensuring our audience understood not only the

competitive price of the car but also the breadth of product benefits available. Once we had raised awareness of the

product, we had to ensure that we continued the conversation with our audience. Throughout July, August and September

2012, we ran ½ page advertorials in the Weekend section of the paper. We identified Saturdays as a key day for our

audience as they were 30% more likely to read the newspaper on this day. We also continued to sponsor the crossword

and Sudoku section. By driving frequency throughout Q3 2012, we were able to drive that all important brand familiarity

with our audience.

Throughout the campaign period, digital also played a key part driving frequency and brand awareness with our audience.

From launch, we hosted an online hub on the Telegraph website. The hub featured online reviews, hosted the print

features and the competition mechanic. Readers were able to request brochures, test drives and understand more about

the product. It also pushed through the Dacia website allowing us to data capture.

Results

The results were phenomenal; we had over 38,000 competition entries and 15,114 brochure and email opt-ins. These

response rates were twice those of The Daily Telegraph’s most successful motoring partnership to date. Our ambitious pre-

order target was surpassed within the first month. In addition, 77% of our pre-orders were from our target age range of

40+ ABC1. All of these results can be attributed to the Daily Telegraph as this was the only media activity running.

The results from the research we conducted were positive. The objective of the research was to measure campaign

awareness and engagement. We also measured reader consideration for the Dacia brand. Over a third (39%) saw the Dacia

features (mid 57%) and two-thirds read the features or intended to (= mid; 66%). There was an uplift of +123% post vs. pre

in brand awareness. In addition, there were uplifts across key brand statements, with the top 2 statements being ‘value for

money’ and ‘affordable’. (Source: Telegraph research 2012)

Client view

The client was very happy with the campaign. In fact, the campaign was such a success that we have revisited the

partnership twice since the launch of the campaign.

Ed Preston from Renault UK said:

“The Telegraph partnership launched with a great impact takeover of the paper. Front page presence with the scratch pad

was a unique way to communicate the unique price proposition of Dacia.

The partnership brought us a good volume of commercial leads and the consistent presence allowed our target audience

to grasp the brand identity of Dacia.”

Some images from the campaign: