Ecosport Failure to Launch

Challenge:

The Canadian launch of the EcoSport utilizing US Creative had not delivered the results Ford was expecting. EcoSport ended 2018 with the lowest awareness and share of sales in the segment. There was pressure to improve both figures as Ford was phasing out cars in favour of SUV’s like EcoSport

Approach:

3rd party automotive specific data from recent Ecosport buyers was compared to the initial aspirational launch target. Base age demographics showed a consumer who was significantly older than the initial target and a segment that was trending older as well. Markers from new “purchased” target (age, geographic location, gender split, 2nd vehicle etc.) were used to stitch data together with more robust syndicated surveys. This enabled me to ensure that briefs to the creative and media teams benefited from robust psychographics and media habits as well as vehicle preferences. The creative team appreciated having a greater understanding of the consumer and the new more targeted brief.

Outcome:

Creative tracking of the new ad showed an ad recall increase of 114% and an action increase of 48%. The top emotion generated by the old ad was “sadness”. Our new ad decreased this score from 117 to 75. The top emotion generated by the new ad became ‘Intrigued’ with a score of 92, up from 88.