The Chevrolet’s Tracker SUV was launched in Argentina just before the pandemic. It was the darling of its segment. A great business success and a great addition to the portfolio. Finally, Chevrolet had an SUV that could compete and push the brand to lead the attractive small SUV segment. After a year of pandemic, the automotive industry was heavily affected by the worldwide shortage of car parts. The result was that all car manufacturers ran out of cars to sell. Shutting down all marketing actions due to lack of cars in the dealerships seemed like the less harming decision to take but by doing so, all the gains achieved before the crisis were going to be lost.

We decided to create an anti-product placement with the most unusual spokeperson a brand could choose: an anti-hero, the protagonist of the show “Almost Happy” by Netflix. We had written the car into the plot, where Sebi, the protagonist, a moderately successful radio DJ, receives several attempts from companies who want to sponsor his show. One of those, a fictional producer of a premature ejaculation cure, finds him as the perfect endorser for its product. This side plot paved the way to introduce the Tracker, and also gave us the license to joke about controversial topics in the automotive category, for instance, the compensation theory (Argentinians are indeed big consumers of Freudian psychoanalysis). Crazy, but it was also effective on keeping Tracker alive and part of the cultural conversation. To add insult to the injury the Tracker replaced Sebi’s old and dysfunctional Ford, almost an established character in the show.

Men and Women, 35+ years old with purchase power to access the segment, but with a low profile, less aspirational that regardless the wide offer of SUV, they keep considering the compact vehicles.

During the pandemic, Netflix reached his historic audience and subscriptions peak. It was on at every house. Our objective was that the Tracker doesn´t lose all the gained territory and relevance in the SUV B segment, the fastest growing segment in the lasts years, and is projected to be the most important in our industry. But, at the same time, we couldn´t generate leads or drive people to the dealers since we didn´t have cars to sell.

The sole decision of hiring the fictional protagonist of the show as our brand influencer in the most viewed platform of the world, was to put our product in the home of our consumers without driving people to the dealerships.

We were sure of one thing: if we wanted to be part of these conversations by putting our SUV in Netflix most successful show, we couldn’t do just a simple product placement. We had to find a way to be one of the main characters of the story, be completely disruptive; we had to be brave. And what we would do had to be part of the culture and Youtube’s most frequent searches. So, we hired the protagonist of “Almost Happy” as our brand influencer and gave the show writer (also the protagonist) the freedom to use one of the most controversial insights of the car world: “The compensation Theory”. Crazy? Maybe, but an effective craziness.

Before even having any product in the dealerships, Chevrolet Tracker became the buying intention segment leader in Q4 2022 with an increase of:

+ 10 pts consideration

+ 9 pts positive sentiment

+ 300% searches.

+ 70 MM reach

+ 23 K mentions in Twitter & media.

Last but not least, when the Tracker returned to the dealerships at the end of 2022, we started to climb in market share ranking, only to become the uncontested leader in sales at the beginning of 2023 with 29% of market share.

Not bad for an anti-product placement with the most irreverent anti-hero.