The insights gained from the initial data showed us that we needed to be more trendy and relevant - and appeal to our identified audience in a social context.

While monitoring audience activity, we found the sudden rise of a trending topic in the city - #BraamLion. One morning, photos of a wild male lion, roaming free on the streets of the city, started appearing on the net. It was a stunt done by a production agency with a tame lion, to get attention for their upcoming film - and our market started sharing it everywhere.

Which is when we intercepted the conversation in order to change perceptions around our brand.

Deploying another insight from our data, we used humour to resonate with our market, by putting a man in a lion costume on the streets. he did all the things the real lion did and more. He was cheeky, fun – and he became an overnight sensation..

And when the real-time data from Facebook and Twitter told us the time was right, we revealed the true nature of the campaign…

It’s not the same if it’s not genuine.

Chevrolet Genuine Parts.

On Tuesday the 12th of April, photo’s surfaced on Twitter and Facebook of a male lion loose in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. Social media was a buzz with speculation, and the hashtag: #BraamLion began to trend.

To capitalize on the hype created around the original #BraamLion conversation, we recreated the original images with photos and video of a stage man in a lion suit on Thursday the 14th of April. The campaign idea stemmed from a brief for Chevrolet South Africa’s genuine parts.

On Friday morning, the 15th of April, we seeded the content organically on platforms where the original photos surfaced, before a big media push of the reveal from the Chevrolet SA accounts. We subsequently ran paid media until the 19th of April.

- Within 5 hours we became the number 1 overall trending topic in the whole country

- Mentions increased by 58%, with news stations, celebrities, newspapers, popular online blogs and the like of The Feather Awards and Comedy Central having their say

- 850% in earned media

- We reached 5.5 million people in just 4 days

- And got 166% more people talking about Chevrolet