There are many communities in South Africa that lack essential supplies like clean drinking water, textbooks and food, because they are located in hard-to-reach places. By harnessing the off-road ability and carrying capacity of the Amarok, we turned ordinary, everyday test drives into deliveries that matter, distributing essential supplies such as drinking water to drought-stricken areas, resources to struggling entrepreneurs, and textbooks to rural schools. We also gave test drivers the opportunity to get the full Amarok off-road experience, instead of merely driving it around the city. Simply by walking into a dealership or applying online, test drivers get to drive the Amarok in the conditions it’s built for and do social good.

We started by facilitating initial social test drives, with the goal of creating content to kick-start our campaign. We documented these test drives as they delivered urgent supplies to communities in hard-to-reach places and then launched promoted videos in targeted environments to encourage potential test drivers to get involved.

We then directed them to a simple and easy-to-use microsite, which further explains the campaign, and allows visitors to participate in a way that suits them best. Alternatively, potential test drivers could also visit their local dealership. Dealerships were sent toolkits to help them promote interest and convert potential participants into Social Test Drivers.

This project is still in motion and expanding across the country, as more and more dealerships get involved.

Our online videos received over 1.5million views and 102.3million OTS, and our campaign achieved approximately R23.5 million of free exposure. This resulted in turning 4683 test drive kilometres into 4683km that matter, by delivering essentials such as drinking water to drought-stricken areas, supplies to struggling entrepreneurs, care packages to vulnerable communities, and textbooks to rural schools. We also gave numerous test drivers the opportunity to get the full Amarok off-road experience, instead of simply driving it around the city, as they would usually do.

The Amarok Social Test Drive campaign continues to provide the first ever link between thousands of potential pickup customers who want to test drive a vehicle in a robust way, and communities who are desperately in need of pickups to deliver critical payloads to them.