The Campaign

Through in-car research we discovered the most compelling Spark feature was the Pandora app built into MyLink - a connected monitor on the dashboard. Around 240,000 under 35 year olds were listening to Pandora (20% of Millennials in New Zealand). And they loved that they could stay connected to their favourite Pandora tunes inside the Holden Spark. We also found that music was a key passion point. Discovering new music and artists was a great way to demonstrate amongst friends that you are ‘in the know.’ Our idea: Holden Spark Sessions. Collaborating with Pandora, we leveraged their data to identify emerging New Zealand artists that were on the verge of “breaking out”. Then we interviewed these artists inside a Holden Spark and allowed them to play their new music, giving them a launch pad to publicise their new tracks. We filmed the interviews, this content was the Spark Sessions campaign.

Creative Execution

We partnered with Pandora, but this was more than a media partnership because Pandora and music was at the heart of the entire campaign, The campaign kicked off with a high-impact YouTube Masthead. Then we released a suite of energising 15”, 30” and 90” videos in places our audience connect socially: YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. We delivered snackable highlights from the artists’ interviews with a call-to-action to discover more. Because we knew our audience were connecting with content OnDemand, we leveraged this space using 15” pre-rolls. We developed a bespoke Pandora station - Holden Spark Sessions where Millennials could listen to a playlist of emerging and popular artists and tracks. When on-station, we delivered audio and video content, encouraging Millennials to visit holden.co.nz/spark The content drove Millennials to the custom built “Holden Spark Sessions” website where they could immerse themselves in full artist interviews, alongside more information about Holden Spark.

The featured Spark model sold out just six weeks into the campaign! Objective 1 - Increase consideration of Holden Spark amongst Millennials. During the campaign, we had a +141% increase in under 35-year-old visitors to holden.co.nz/spark and a +44% increase in under 35-year-olds to holden.co.nz. Objective 2 - Increase sales of Spark to under 30-year-olds from 3.5% to 5% During the campaign period 30% of Spark buyers were under 30 years old! Objective 3 – Equal the sales of the market leader in the private micro car category. Holden Spark went to number one position in the micro-car category, overtaking Mitsubishi Mirage who had been number one for three years. Objective 4 - Increase favourability of the Holden brand by 10% amongst Millennials. The YouTube Brand Lift report showed a +15% increase in Brand Favourability and +143% increase in Brand Interest amongst Millennials who saw the campaign.

To grow share, Holden needed to connect with Millennials. We were launching the perfect car – Holden Spark. Before we could convince Millennials to buy Spark, we needed to overcome the perception that “Holden is a car for my Dad”. Speaking with Millennials, we discovered Spark’s most compelling feature was the Pandora app built into MyLink (a connected monitor on the dashboard). We created a campaign, with Pandora at the heart: - Leveraging Pandora data to identify emerging artists - Creating a Pandora station featuring these artists - Interviewing these artists inside a Spark - Creating and amplifying interview content

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Our strategy was to position Holden Spark as the ultimate car for the connected, in the know driver. Media execution principles were: • Leverage media platforms where they are connecting to each other. • Connect them to music, they value listening to music in the car. • Amplify the most appealing ‘connected car feature’ – listening to Pandora through MyLink. Pandora provided us with real-time data on Millennials’ listening habits. From this data we identified three artists on the verge of “breaking out” – Bailey Wiley, TIMES x TWO and Estère. We recruited all three artists and interviewed them inside a Holden Spark. Interviewing our emerging artists was Gracie Taylor, a popular media personality connected with Millennials. We played the artists’ tracks through Pandora on MyLink, meanwhile demonstrating the car’s features such as Google Maps and the reversing camera to help them on their drive.