There’s no feeling quite like hitting the open road in a high-end sports car. The wind in your hair, the feeling of exhilaration as you take a tight corner at high speed…But how often do you really get to experience that in the city? Due to constant congestion, gridlock, stoplights and parked cars, a vehicle’s top speed really means nothing in the city. What’s most important is a great jump off the line to get ahead of other cars and into open lanes. We wanted to highlight the smart fortwo electric drive’s quickness and acceleration. So we decided to really put the car to the test by racing it head to head against a Ford Mustang, Porsche Boxster and Audi A5. We headed to Hamilton, took over an airport runway and created a drag strip…but with a twist. The race was only 5 meters long. In the city, it’s the first 5 meters that really count and these races would prove just which vehicle has the upper hand in off-the-line acceleration. The smart electric drive took on some of the fastest cars in the world…and won.

The smart 5-meter drag race video that highlighted smart’s quickness off the line launched with a 15 second teaser and full-length version on YouTube pre-roll. It was also supported with Facebook static and video posts, twitter, and auto-blogger seeding.

The charging station locations that highlighted new infrastructure and an unbeatable fueling price were also shared and promoted through Facebook.

Both initiatives, as well as banner ads, drove to the smart city microsite where people could learn more about the car, sign up for test drives, and participate in an online charging station contest for a trip to Rome.

With a $70,000 media budget for the 2014 campaign, the 5-meter drag race campaign earned over 94.3 million impressions, 2.2 million views (1.45 earned), 784,000 clicks at a 0.83% click through rate –vastly exceeding industry norms. Sales of the smart forwo electric drive almost tripled compared to last year, with an increase of 296% in year over year sales. By September 2014, we had sold out of all smart fortwo electric drive vehicles for the year.