In the year 2020, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles wanted to make a brand relocation and rejuvenation of the motorhome segment with the aim of increasing the awareness and purchase intention of a new and younger target group (25-45 years).

However, this younger audience, also very trend sensitive, wouldn´t define a new camper as “cool” and would rather spend the night in a designer hotel than in an RV. Originally, the camper category was mainly targeted to and purchased by elderly folks of 55 years or older, so we needed to change the perception of the brand for this younger group. It needed to feel fresh, modern, and of course, covid-19 friendly.

To encourage young people to hit the road, we decided to place the campers in a memorable, stylish, and unique context. In collaboration with the design hotel HOBO and hotel mogul Petter Stordalen, we launched 'Hotel California' - a designer hotel suite, you can drive. A hospitality innovation that offers a new way to experience roads and countrysides.

The initiative took the glamping trend to new heights packing all the amenities of a hotel room into Volkswagen California camper vans such as crisp bed sheets, hotel robes, Bluetooth speakers, hair fans, magazines, etc. We also teamed up with an award-winning chef creating an onboard tasting menu including a careful selection of on-the-road recipes.

With our trend, sensitive audience in mind, we knew that we had to target the right type of media and create the right type of Pinterest-friendly assets. The campaign was split into five phases: Tease, Announce, Maintain, Peak, and Close. Key assets of videos and imagery were tied to each phase.

The ambition was to get Sweden’s top tier dailies and lifestyle outlets to talk about ‘Hotel California’ and we identified five target verticals: News, Culture, Food, Automotive, and Lifestyle.

The strategic PR tools included under-embargo interviews, press release distribution, blogger outreach. Furthermore, we created a SoMe-script for owned channels and teamed up with a selective, handful of influential Instagrammers showcasing how a summer getaway in our campers would feel like.

Pre-launch:

To meet our KPI of increased brand awareness, we nailed an exclusive interview about the brand partnership in Sweden’s largest business paper. This as well as teaser posts in SoMe, and selective influencer collaborations on Instagram, made our target audience really excited about the launch.

Launch:

To make sure the whole experience felt genuine, the booking experience of the vans was marketed just like hotel rooms on https://hobo.se/. During a period of 4 weeks, a total of 22 “rooms” was bookable. At “checkin-in”, guests would receive the keys to a van with a tank full of gas as well as a grocery bag with recipes.

An extensive PR-push went live on launch day, as well dooh, OLV, print advertising, and SoMe.

By opening a boutique hotel together with Petter Stordalen, we succeeded in our most important objective - to make RVs interesting for a new, picky group of consumers. Follow-up of the campaign was done via “Volkswagen Brand Survey 2020”:

Campaign effect/result vs. concrete goals

Primary KPIs:

1. Recommendability - Can you imagine recommending Volkswagen motorhomes to others?

KPI: at least 75%

Results: 97%

2. Purchase intention - Can you imagine buying a California 61 or Grand California within a couple of years?

KPI: 60%

Results: 75

3. Product experience. What is your rating for the overall experience of Hotel California?

KPI: at least 75% positive

Outcome: 94%

Secondary KPIs:

PR Exposure

1.

Goal in media reach: 10 000 000

Outcome: 18 000 000

2.

The goal in PR-value: 4 000 000

The outcome in PR-value: 6 000 000