The Campaign

Target audience are the truckers in China, majority are males aged 25-45, with lower education levels. They spend most of the time on the road and work very long hours every day. Truck drivers are an impressive group of hardworking people who are the backbone of the world’s most enormous e-commerce logistical network. Despite this, truck drivers are often overlooked by society. They tend to socialize within their own group of peers as the outside world rarely understands them, or what they do. We decided to transform the EPE event to celebrate truckers, to champion them and enable them to take more pride in their work. EPE was also an opportunity to scale the trucker world via livestream to a mass audience. As our truckers are on the road most of the time, they are highly engaged on their smartphones for entertainment. Activities include news, social media, and other.

Creative Execution

We built the EPE launch event with 360che which is the biggest trucker mobile vertical media in China. In warm-up stage, it lasted almost one month to attract more truckers to sign-up online. By strong online exposure to public, we hold a two-days offline activity “Shell Rimula Heroes League”. It is a platform to let truckers enjoy and relax through interesting programs, interactive games, and driving safety classes, etc. What’s more, we also delivery real care and benefit by sharing experience. Our offline activity was also delivered in a live broadcast and discussed online in topic page, to make sure more truckers get involved and avoid limitation by location. We cooperated with 360che to place a perpetual countdown timer, to our EPE event. Thus, we made sure our EPE event stayed top-of-mind, and made sure our drivers can schedule their routes to attend our event in Chengdu.

Evaluation: ? Reach: More than 12 mil truckers have been reached by our message. It means about 40% Chinese truckers knew about our campaign ? Participation: In total, 21,492 truckers signed-up online with phone number info provided and 22,600 people attended our event offline. 45 x times improved of the cost per trucker recruit versus previous year. ? Engagement: During campaign period, the interaction rate of topic H5 page is 2.98%, which is 58% higher than historical campaigns. And there is 0.71 mil people watching live broadcast in the same time. Market impact: Help Shell Rimula maintain lead position and build brand preference. ? According to Baidu Index, it showed brand attention rate gone up 26% more during campaign period. ROI: ? Comparing with the EPE campaign in last year, the sales increased 17%. Premium product sales performance increased 100%!

We co-created the Shell EPE event with a media platform (360che), in the form of a branded partnership. We also leveraged online resources to make the offline event attendance a success. We then used livestreaming tactics to amplify the offline event online, and made the offline event a national sensation. We transformed the 360 media portal into a signup page, with a countdown timer, to make our event into the most anticipated industry event for truckers in China – to hit exponential attendance numbers as compared with previous years.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

CHAMPIONING OUR DRIVERS IN A HUMAN WAY We decided the transform the EPE format this year. Our truck drivers work hard, and they work long hours. Despite being professionals, on a deeper level, these drivers are humans with real human motivations. The 2018 EPE was relaunched in a whole new format, with entertainment, bands, performances, and music – content that humans like and enjoy, to truly champion and appreciate our drivers. Unlike past years, we removed overly commercial elements and created an enjoyable event for all those who attended, truly a refreshing respite from the long hours in the truck. As an oil & gas company, Shell struggles to be relevant and human. As truckers, our audience struggled to be seen as more than laborers in Chinese society. Through the refreshed 2018 EPE, Shell and truckers found solidarity with each other, and humanized one another.