The Campaign

The overarching creative idea merged what the RAV4 had always delivered, with a life the target aspired to lead. A world of spontaneous fun – expressed through the brand line ‘anything goes’. The TV expression of ‘anything goes’ gave consumers a view into a world where people lived out this ethos and embraced spontaneity. But we knew we needed more that classic TVC craft to make the idea resonate in the digital environment. In addition we knew that Gen Xers are information hungry, and would meticulously research everything they buy. Our digital creative brought together oddball humour, product features and goats – in a catchy content series. And of course the entire thing was sung to the tune of the classic Cole Porter tune, ‘Anything Goes’.

Creative Execution

Through sophisticated targeting, we focused our digital media on consumers in the ‘Early Consideration phase’ of the purchase funnel. A 10-week program of social videos, filtered through platforms like Facebook and Instagram - as well as online pre-rolls, which ran simultaneously to maximise cut-through and create a digital roadblock. This lead to a highly efficient use of media spend, and successfully stepped considerers through to more detailed information, often resulting in them advancing next stage of the purchase decision process.

Over two million people have seen the online content, with significantly positive reaction. Importantly, average watch duration was 47 seconds, massive for a pre-roll ad. Not to mention a click through rate of 1.31%, way above benchmark. As a result, RAV4’s brand metrics have all jumped to their highest point in years – and RAV4 has since had its highest selling month ever – a 25% jump year on year.

The campaign was largely inspired by the song “Anything Goes”. As a sentiment and a feel it perfectly summed up the sense of spontaneous fun the brand wanted to capture and own. It’s the soundtrack to our TV commercial and we then reinterpreted the lyrics to highlight features of the car in our social videos. Proof that a great song can not only support a campaign, it can inspire it.

We revisited the brands DNA and in doing so, uncovered what RAV actually stood for: Recreational Active Vehicle (4). The chief engineers vision was for a driveable, versatile, desirable vehicle that could enable a more active lifestyle. When we looked into research, we found something interesting: our audience, 30-39 year olds, weren’t having enough fun. They were looking forward to their weekends, but weren’t finding them exciting. They were so busy during the week, that even by the time they got to the weekend, they spent less than 50% of it on leisure. We realised they were looking for excuses and permission to get out there. It meant giving this restless generation the control that made them feel free to get away. The brief was simple: make people feel free to pursue recreation, anytime, anyplace.