To promote the new 2009 Chevy Aveo5 among the web-savvy youth market, Chevrolet worked with our agency to craft an innovative program leveraging online video, social networking and word-of-mouth marketing in a quest to engage this hard-to-reach segment in a meaningful way. Leveraging the things college students most enjoy- a few minutes of fame and a free ride- the Chevy Aveo5 Livin’ Large College Cab was born.At the core of the program were free rides in the Aveo5 College Cab for students on six campuses across the country. These rides were filmed by the interior “Cab Cam” and posted within 24 hours to www.aveolivinlarge.com. Students who could secure the most views on their video out of any other from their school would advance to a final round of competition where the six finalists would compete for votes. The winning video would see its stars win brand new Aveo5s.The program ran for approximately seven weeks, and during that time, we tracked more than 707,000 video views (and counting). We’re happy to report that content from the program was loaded 148,000 times on sites other than our own! And though the Aveo5 College Cab physically visited only six schools, more than 250 universities were engaged as evidenced by site metrics. In terms of traditional media coverage, the program secured more than 57 million media impressions.

At the core of the program were free rides in the Aveo5 College Cab for students on six campuses across the country. These rides were filmed by the interior “Cab Cam” and posted within 24 hours to www.aveolivinlarge.com. Students who could secure the most views on their video out of any other from their school would advance to a final round of competition where the six finalists would compete for votes. The winning video would see its stars win brand new Aveo5s.Two integral pieces of the program- competition and reward- were significant drivers for viral views and were played up accordingly.A web site at www.aveolivinlarge.com would serve as program headquarters and would include tools that made it simple for users to share content with their social networks via Facebook, MySpace, email, and video embed functionality.

Site visitors could leave comments, rate a video and enter to win one of six iPods by rating a video and providing contact information.

The program ran for approximately seven weeks, and during that time, we tracked more than 707,000 video views (and counting). For a view to be counted as such, a user had to watch the video all the way through with no ability to skip ahead to the end. The video views for this program equate to more than 23,550 hours of content viewed. It’s even more compelling when you consider that every minute of that footage featured the product and college students using it, and in many cases commenting on it.

A primary goal of the program was getting the students themselves to push content out virally to their social networks. We’re happy to report that content from the program was loaded 148,000 times on sites other than our own, and though the Aveo5 College Cab physically visited only six schools, more than 250 universities were engaged as evidenced by site metrics.In terms of traditional media coverage, the program secured more than 57 million media impressions.