Citroën launched a digital DM campaign using a combination of apps and print to target dealers at a local level. Gemma Huckle reports
French vehicle manufacturer, Citroën initiated an interactive direct mail and smartphone marketing campaign to raise awareness of its DS brand to its dealers and customers.
In previous campaigns, the company experienced low levels of monitoring success when launching a new model. It was therefore keen to increase campaign visibility and boost its ability to track dealer marketing material. To address this, Citroën launched a digital DM campaign with watermark and app technology to track user interaction.
Designed for the unveiling of the new Citroën DS5, the campaign, named ‘Citroën DS discovery days’, aimed to engage both customers and dealers. It also served as a reminder for its two other DS line models – DS3 and DS4.
The campaign, designed by agency We Are Acuity, targeted the Citroën dealer network, which was comprised of 192 dealers across the UK. Citroën wanted to bridge the gap between online and offline content, giving users increased options and experience by moving them from the DM piece to the app.
Personal and local
Each of the dealers was sent an interactive DM invitation that worked independently as a printed item. However, it also incorporated three digital watermarks that could be scanned through an app, created by print-to-mobile specialists Digital Space, to launch content tailored to the individual dealers. Recipients were then able to view nine images and three videos relating to the specific models.
Citroën focused on extensively personalising the campaign as much as possible. In total, 576 different digital watermarks were created on 192 versions of the mailer for the DS3, DS4 and DS5 models. When scanned, the watermarks linked to content specific to that model, as well as the local dealer. This enabled Citroën to deliver leads directly to dealers via the mobile app.
Reporting dashboards
Delivering leads to dealers provided an additional scope to the campaign, increasing the level of tracking of dealer marketing materials. This was possible thanks to the combination of the watermark ad app technology and the DM piece. Reporting dashboards not only tracked customer interaction but also recognised customer request submissions. Customers were encouraged to participate in a number of calls-to-action. These included; calling their local dealer directly, requesting a brochure, booking a test drive, requesting a call back from their local dealer and expressing an interest in attending their local DS discovery day event.
The campaign was the vehicle manufacturer’s first far-reaching integrated activity, and involved dealer marketing, national advertising, CRM and digital activity, as well as creative, technical and CRM agencies.
The campaign launched on 27 February 2012 and ran until 30 April. Citroën is still collating the results from the campaign but revealed that 83 per cent of dealers received responses through the app, with customers initially responding by scanning an image and then pressing a call-to-action button. From this action, just over 40 per cent of respondees interacted with the video button, 20 per cent were interested in contacting Citroën at that initial stage and the remaining wanted to discover more about the models.
New Citroën DS5 generated the most interest. This high interest in DS5 was found to be consistent throughout the dealer zones on a national level. Interest in the DS3 and DS4 models was roughly equal, with about half the interest shown in the new DS5.
Claire Cardosi, dealer marketing manager at Citroën, commented, “This has been an extremely interesting and exciting project to work on as we’re pushing the traditional boundaries of dealer marketing by using a highly personalised level of technology and adding an additional level of tracking. The level of interaction of the campaign was important to us, and the achievement of this has been shown by the fact that we were asked to present this project at the ‘Go integrated’ event hosted by the Direct Marketing Association.”
