It was eBay’s inaugural Festival of Speed and our first time working with them.

The client brief was to ‘Grow brand consideration and build trust by appealing to enthusiasts as well as the wider Festival of Speed audience’ focusing on two functions ‘Work’ (educate, relevance, interact, ambassadors) and ‘Play’ (fun, experimental, shareable and surprising).

With four key project objectives:

• Maximise brand exposure through an open design space to attract and keep guests' attention.

• Showcase eBay's Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) commitment through the repurposed build , storage and re-use of end-of-life containers.

• Highlighting eBay's platform capabilities through unique activations that allow content exploration both physically on the space and digitally within the platform.

• Position eBay as category leaders through a curated content plan and wider social media campaign featuring ambassadors resonating with the second-hand car market, such as Becky Evans, Ortis Deley, and Ant Anstead.

The creative idea was the ‘eBay Garage’ - the perfect metaphor for the services the brand provides its consumers.

The visual codes of garages are easily understood and therefore even easier to riff off; when combined with the brand’s primary colour palette the activation subtly took you to the fun of toy garages.

A series of zones guided the customer journey. Attention was first grabbed by an interactive “Climbing Wall” showcasing eBay’s broad inventory with car part grips and a competition leader-board.

Within the space, visitors first encountered an ‘ASMR’ game “Find, Fix & Win” with part-fitting challenges and eBay hat prizes, souvenir “Bumper Stickers”, the “eBay Museum” which linked to Goodwood's 75th anniversary with a charity auction of historic parts.

Supporting the concept: an “Ask The Expert” advice zone with eBay’s car part-finder, “Live Stage” talks by automotive influencers, and “Engagement Zone” with relatable DIY projects and vehicle displays.

eBay’s campaign audience were ‘Enthusiasts’ (DIYers, Passionate Tinkerers, and Money-Saving DIYers). But we also needed to attract the attention of the wider FoS audience, the trade press and those beyond the festival itself.

We hand-picked our creative team to include a few ‘petrol-heads’ and uncover consumer insights. A key early learning was the realisation that eBay doesn’t normally get to interact with customers beyond transactions or when something goes wrong…there’s no physical retail presence. So activations provide a great opportunity to engage and shift curious consumers’ perceptions of the brand.

We quickly devised 5 potential activation directions, from which the client then merged two routes: ‘eBay House’ and ‘eBay Live’. This formed the ‘eBay Garage’ which was developed with a focus on exceptional creativity and ROI. From stand design to content curation, script-writing, and brand ambassador management, every element was meticulously crafted to drive engagement, education and affinity.

Key facts:

- Briefing: February 2023

- Build period: June 3rd - July 12th

- Live days: 13th – 16th July

- Four repurposed containers utilised to form the structure of the activation space

- Three sustainability-focused contractors engaged for construction

- A four-day content programme, featuring different guest speakers and their prized cars (influencer Becky Evans, stunt driver Terry Grant), hosted by presenter Ortis Deley, plus DJ sets – with new content daily to attract and drive engagement

Placement: In a prime position at a walkway crossroads on the Goodwood Festival of Speed ‘Grid’, where the largest car brands occupy similar footprints for their activations during the festival.

Scale: Dimensions: 25m (w) x 20m (l) x 5.5m (h) stand space.

We used heat-mapping sensors to measure passive and engaged guests, providing data and insights on consumer flow and dwell time, which was then linked to eBay conversion KPIs.

Objective: Maximise exposure.

Outcome (visitors): The stand attracted 80,000 visitors over the 4 x live days

Outcome (dwell time): Visitors spent an average of 10 minutes at the stand, doubling the festival's average.

Conversion

Objective: Increase presence on-site and draw people into the stand's activations.

Outcome (engagement): A significant conversion ratio of 25%, indicating that one in four visitors engaged deeply.

Social Reach

Objective: Position eBay Parts & Accessories as category leaders

Outcome (influence): 3.5M impressions and 5M video views with Goodwood Spark Ads with a VTR of nearly 40% exceeding eBay benchmarks.

Outcome (digital reach): Over 850k organic social media impressions across 48 specific Goodwood FoS posts, the highest of all car vehicle event campaigns in the year on UK channels.