CHALLENGE: To launch its new Assurance TripleMax (ATM) tire, Goodyear required a creative campaign to reach a target audience in a low-consumer-engagement product category: car tires. The product had outstanding technology and strong design-based selling points. But from a communications perspective, targets were not interested in these details when making a purchase choice.

OBJECTIVE: Goodyear required a campaign with a more emotional connection.

STRATEGY: With the insight that targets were interested, instead, in the safety of their children and loved ones when driving on China's roads during rainy season, and that ATM performed especially well in the rain, the yellow rubber duck was identified as a perfect creative device to use as the centre-point of an integrated online and offline campaign.

Associated with helping young children feel safe in the water at bath-time, a yellow rubber duck could be used in a light-hearted way to communicate that, with ATM, drivers can feel happy about keeping their loved ones safe in watery driving road conditions.

EXECUTION: Featuring prominently throughout the PR campaign combining PR elements of interaction, entertainment, education, exposure and fun, the Goodyear rubber duck provided a touch-point to represent innate feelings of happiness and safety that offered a 'human element' when promoting what is typically a low-involvement product.

OUTCOME: By developing this positive connection with the target audience in a creative way, the response to ATM, reflected both in sales performance and the number of interactions with the PR campaign, proved that awareness and reputation were successfully enhanced.

The goal was to launch a product within the low-consumer-involvement category in a creative way that could capture the target audience. Our business objective was to achieve an aggressive sales forecast in the first year. Our communication objective was to deliver the outstanding wet braking performance message in a way that connected with the Goodyear retail channel. The target audience for this product was predominantly male drivers 30-45 years old, driving mid-range vehicles. They have young children and families and are cautious in protecting them in often dangerous driving conditions on China’s roads in the summer rainy season.

Awareness: The rubber duck helped achieve 81% recognition for the campaign, against 51% average recognition for previous Goodyear campaigns (ATM Campaign Media Impact Analysis 2013, Millward Brown). Brand awareness grew with statistically significant increases in unaided and total awareness (95% confidence level), while Bridgestone awareness was observed as flat and Michelin declined.

Knowledge: Perceived performance on wet roads among all competitive brands jumped to #2 (up from #4) during this campaign, proving that our key message and seasonal focus were successfully communicated (Millward Brown).

Business Impact: Sales exceeded forecast by 26% for the first 6 months in market. The forecast set was aggressive given this product offered a major competitive point of difference and underlying mid-car segment growth was healthy at 7%. Achieved while monitored ad spend shows our top 3 competitors combined outspent our campaign budget by 18:1 with Bridgestone alone outspending Goodyear by 8:1 (Nielsen data, July-October 2013).

An integrated online and offline campaign was implemented with focused activity in six of China's major cities.

This included: teaser activities to surprise drivers with the placement of hundreds of rubber ducks in public spaces; thematic online videos to highlight the emotional message and safety benefits in an entertaining way; a campaign mini-site to host a variety of consumer engagement activities such as a photo competition; banner ads and SEM; radio advertising at targeted times of the day to catch drivers during their daily driving routines; distribution of 1.3 million branded ducks; in-store promotion including training staff to explain how the duck can be used to encourage calm driving; and an official media launch event.

Central to all of this activity was the Goodyear-branded yellow rubber duck icon.

The campaign was executed over July-September when drivers will typically consider their tires in relation to the changing season and local rainy conditions.

When Goodyear was ready to launch its advanced new Assurance TripleMax (ATM) tire in China, the agency firstly partnered with the technical geniuses behind its impressive design. ATM applied some of the world’s most advanced innovations; a functionalized polymer tread compound with improved molecular bonding; FEA Neutralized Stress ply line that creates a more robust and durable carcass… zzzzzz. Herein lay our problem. What car owner understands or cares about the technical details? In this low-involvement category, drivers are only interested in something far more important – how to protect their loved ones on China’s roads in the approaching rainy season.

Looking to popular culture for safety and protection cues, we identified that the rubber duck represents positive childhood memories.

Parents often use a rubber duck to comfort their kids’ fear of water at bathing time. It is a symbol of pleasure with strong emotional engagement. We believed it could work as a creative device to remind car drivers about driving safety on rainy days – making the connection that water can be enjoyed safely – while communicating the major product benefit of shorter braking distance on wet roads.

The rubber duck was the perfect rainy season cue that would enable the launch campaign to gain emotional and cultural resonance with our family target. A specially designed Goodyear-branded yellow rubber duck would form a visual cue to demonstrate that, with Goodyear Assurance TripleMax, drivers could now safely ‘Enjoy the Rain’ as much as a rubber duck enjoys bath time.