In-depth research helped to crystallise 2 core truths:

1. The drive is as important as the car to the target audience. They LOVE to drive

2. Somewhere along the way, the excitement, romance and adventure of car rental has been lost

Research took us to great driving roads, where every forum and car expert had a view. The majority of lists had the same roads, just in different orders. No surprises & subjective opinions. And a noticeable absence of brand mentions.

Our thought was: could science help determine what the world’s best driving road is by looking at the total experience and if so, be a surprise to everyone?

The World’s Best Driving Road from Avis was born.

A list of the world’s best roads was constructed via research and each market providing recommendations. Experts mapped each road to identify which one was closest to the optimum 10:1 (10 seconds per straight to 1 second per bend).

Videos to bring the ADR to life were key as was rich visual content for social. A toolkit containing the best roads across the world was created & distributed.

The story was seeded across social under #AvisBestRoads and then simultaneously launched across markets on 22nd April 2015 hitting all PR channels as promotions encouraged people to try the roads for themselves. Highlights include the Portuguese team securing four hits on national TV stations including a live broadcast in a helicopter over the road and the German team securing coverage in Bild. Coverage from this alone drove 30% of total traffic to avisbestroad.com.

Tier 1:

-The campaign transformed the perception of PR within Avis and unified agencies and departments across Europe in a way that hasn’t been done before. It is the most successful campaign Avis has ever run.

Tier 2

-295 articles were published (90% in target consumer facing media) and 63 pieces of broadcast coverage were secured across the seven markets.

-Coverage was 100% neutral to positive in tone. Every piece of coverage contained at least one key message. 98% included at least two key messages and 23% of the coverage contained a link to the campaign microsite.

-Share of voice grew 4.3% across all markets.

Tier 3

-The campaign drove £120,000 in rentals and 40,670 unique visits to the microsite in just 6 weeks, engagement across social channels was up +2,206% YoY.

-The campaign is now being rolled out in other markets.