Chevrolet faced two major business challenges in 2018 within the Pick Up Truck segment.

Firstly, defending brand love for both Chevy and the current generation Silverado was critical to protect UAE market share vs key rivals (Ford F150 and Dodge Ram). This was made harder by the fact that 2019 would see the release of the newest generation Silverado truck which everyone knew was coming.

To help sell the current stock of trucks and to boost profitability per unit, Chevrolet dealers created a unique, special edition Silverado that was pre-installed with accessories, ‘100 year edition’ decals and a ‘1/100’ tailgate badge for extra exclusivity. The target was to sell 100 units, approximately 8% of the total UAE Pick Up market sales.

The UAE retail landscape is highly competitive - we had to outsmart, not outspend the competition, with only $450,000 for both the brand and retail communications plans combined.

Our young, UAE Emirati target audience see their trucks as the ultimate statement of on/off road attitude, pick-up trucks are not used for utility in the region (unlike in the USA) and they are considered for their Style and Performance characteristics – this makes them a very emotionally driven, heart based purchase.

They crave the braggable, money can’t buy experiences and are passionate about the thriving sub-culture of Car modification, tuning and restoration in the Emirate.

The 2018 product plays to this insight with an extremely limited edition Silverado 100 - creating an extra sense of hype, appeal and bragging rights.

Our idea to connect with this hard to reach audience? Brand meets Commerce.

Capitalising on the addiction of mobile content viewing, our creative idea was to launch a branded content series to bring the 100 Year Chevy Truck anniversary to life, while also linking back to the sales objectives

In celebrating 100 years of Chevy Trucks and targeting die hard UAE Truck enthusiasts, we wanted to restore a 1967 Chevy classic truck and pair it with the commercial objective of selling a limited edition 2018 Silverado truck. Our strategy was to be motor enthusiasts communicating to fellow motor enthusiasts – rather than advertisers communicating to consumers.

Classic Cars carry the ultimate badge of auto aficionado and kudos given their limited presence on the road and extra attention. All classic cars in the UAE get a reaction from on-lookers – it’s one of the few countries where classics need to have their own licence plate.

The Century of Trucks series follows the story of a well-known Emirati influencer Hamoody Bambi and the legendary restoration expert Bear Garcia, of Pimp My Ride / West Coast Customs.

The restoration was carried out over 5 YouTube videos. The project placed a lot of emphasis on the style and design of the truck whereby Bear Garcia took cues from the local culture such as the pearl and sand gold custom paint job and Arabic patterns on the truck bed and interior seat stitching. The styling fused together local Emirati culture with the classic Americana truck culture.

Every episode in the series were targeted towards our local Emirati UAE audience.

The call to action would draw the audience’s attention to the bigger reveal – all 100 buyers of the 2018 Limited Edition would then be entered into a raffle draw to win the one of a kind, custom 1967 classic edition that was being produced in the series. This became the focus of the ‘Buy An Icon, Win A Legend’ Retail campaign that was supported by Digital and Dealership communications.

-3 x increase in website traffic

-200% of the 10 week lead target achieved in just 3 weeks

-50% of the special edition trucks sold, and creating a halo effect on sales of the regular 2018 Silverado

-The long form branded content videos had an extremely high view through rate of 18%, almost double the auto benchmark of 10%

-The short form retail videos had 39% view through rate, against an industry benchmark of 20%