Opel asked us to create broad awareness for their car options, positioning Opel as a true innovator. One major problem: Opel offers exactly the same options as its competitors and isn’t seen as an innovative authority.

We had to build up credibility by truly involving Opel’s fans in the R&D-process and by shaping a shareable PR-story that would make people and media position Opel as the innovator.

That’s why we told Opel to communicate options… that don’t exist YET. How? We turned Opel’s website into a crowd-sourcing platform and asked drivers to invent their own brilliant options. Why? Because the brightest options aren’t always conceived in labs.

A simple insight, with a huge outcome.

Out of 1340 consumer-ideas, we chose to realize the game-changing idea of a warehouse-worker called Kenny Devlieger. He thought of an option that really makes a difference to society: Opel Gabriel. An option that protects children from dying of a heatstroke inside the car. This highly-innovative key fob and pressure-sensitive mat watch over your children as a guardian-angel. We prototyped Gabriel and spread the story online. Kenny became our PR-spokesman, and only 24 hours after launching the story, it got shared and liked all over the web, which generated massive media-response. Why we think Opel Gabriel is a genuine PR-case? For once it wasn't the terrible heatstrokes that made international headlines, but the solution. And foremost, these PR-efforts even got the attention of the European Commission, they now want to obligate this car option in Europe.

We launched with a simple question, but as a real-time project, we never knew where and when the campaign would reach its climax. This kind of approach required us to be extremely agile and spot PR opportunities at every given moment. Opel Gabriel is the outcome of a 9 month-during campaign, creating different PR opportunities throughout the different phases.

Phase 1/ A product developer announced the smart options project and called for entries on Opel’s website. (PR focus: influencers)

Phase 2/ The best entries were sketched by a product developer in real-time

(PR focus: niche press & blogs)

Phase 3/ Kenny’s Opel Gabriel was chosen as the most innovative option. (PR focus: broad media)

Phase 4/ Gabriel was produced and installed as a fully functional prototype in the winner’s car. But it doesn’t end there. European Commission investigates launching Gabriel on a pan-European scale. (PR focus: international seeding).

Our brief was to create national awareness around Opel’s car options through PR, positioning Opel as a true innovator. We exceeded this goal by far as Opel Gabriel got pan-european attention and convinced the European Commission to try and obligate the option in every car.

> 1347 highly innovative consumer entries

> Launch video views: 114.878

> + 27.000 Fb-likes

> + 10.000 Fb-shares

> +25 countries reported on Gabriel: Italy, France, Portugal, Hong Kong, Russia, Romania, Spain,…

> Belgian PR reach: +7.000.000 people via social media, blogs, traditional, newspapers, magazines (reference: Belgium - 11 million inhabitants).