Think Volvo and the chances are you'll think "roomy estate". In fact, so pervasive is this preconception that the car marque's wide range of models, including sporty saloons and convertibles too often tend to be overlooked.
This lack of brand awareness has historically been coupled with ignorance of model codes. Consumers faced with an XJS often know that it's a Jaguar; or that an A8 is an Audi - the XC70 is a different matter, however (it's Volvo's stab at the 4x4 market).
This was the wider challenge facing EHSBrann when it won the car manufacturer's below-the-line business in July 2001. Underlying this, there were a number of data capture and lead generation issues that had to be addressed.
Volvo dealers had complained about the quality of the leads that were going through to dealerships to look at cars and take test drives - it seemed that too many were at the wrong lifestage or purchasing stage.
All this was the result of inefficiencies in Volvo's approach to data.
"The first thing we wanted to do was look at the lead generation process," says Polly Brooks, planner at EHSBrann. "We had lots of pots of data relating to lots of different things, such as whether people were interested in sailing, for example, but they were not consistent, and often did not include key data such as repurchase date or budget. We needed accurate information to get the right people into the dealerships".
During the first six months, EHSBrann set about a data audit to see just what information Volvo had on its customers and prospects, and what was missing. It also undertook an overhaul of the company's various data capture and promotional pieces. The goal was a standardised data capture form that would address these issues.
Strategic vision
"During this process we had to involve the dealerships and look strategically at Volvo's future marketing needs," says Brooks.
In addition to the data capture challenge, however, EHSBrann realised that a crucial task would be to educate consumers about the Volvo range.
"Getting people to realise that the cars look stylish and are luxurious is a big challenge," she notes.
A key problem for Volvo was that demographic and lifestage analysis might indicate that prospects were in the market for a certain model, but this did not show the whole picture. Someone fitting the profile of a saloon car driver might have just had a child, for example, making them more suitable for an estate model. Similarly, older consumers who might seem ideal for the estate might now be empty-nesters who would be ready to relive their youth with a sports car.
"We needed to find out all this key data," says Brooks, "but we wanted to avoid overwhelming people with A4-sized data capture sheets. Also people don't want to give too much personal information, especially to a car manufacturer."
As it turned out, the solution proposed elegantly meshed the two requirements.
EHSBrann decided to incorporate information about the entire Volvo range, complete with thumbnail images and a tick-box mechanic, into every promotional pack it sent out.
This had the dual benefit of educating prospects as well as bypassing the need to find out a host of modeling information on prospects. Simply by ticking the model or models that interested them, recipients could sidestep the issue of being mistaken for the wrong driving profile.
Data quality
"This improved data quality immensely," says Brooks. "We first trialled the form in a model-specific promotion for the S60 in spring 2002. The prospects came from data sources we had used before and were happy with, but when the results came back only 19 per cent of responders had ticked that they were interested in the S60. All the rest ticked other models in the range."
It was something of a bombshell for Volvo, and vindicated EHSBrann's data approach. The next step was to roll the form out in a range promotion, which kicked off in April/May 2002. Called 'Decoded', it aimed to "decode" the various Volvo model numbers, gathering information on which to base more model-specific campaigns.
"It has been our most successful promotion to date," says Brooks. "It's now sent out on a monthly basis. We can tell that if someone ticks a number of models they are early on in the selection process, so we send them a range brochure. If they tick only one model, we can focus on specific model information."
Results so far clearly indicate the approach is paying dividends. Brooks notes that the new material has consistently doubled response.
Volvo believes it has been crucial to developing both the volume and the quality of leads. Volvo head of direct marketing Anita Fox says: "Through deep understanding and analysis of how consumers approach the buying process, we have made a small change to our packs that has reaped great rewards."
CLEVER STUFF
EHSBrann's work on data capture for Volvo needed to address three core issues: variation of data capture layout and fields from campaign to campaign; a focus on the product, rather than on the consumer, ie prospects were only assumed to be interested in models specified in a campaign; and the general lack of awareness of Volvo's full range.
Standardisation
The solution was to standardise the data capture forms over all campaigns, moving away from lifestyle-type questions to focus on key data queries such as planned repurchase date and budget. Benefits included lower data capture set-up costs, a consistent creative approach and simple comparison of responses between campaigns. Simpler forms also meant that people were more likely to fill them in more completely.
Awareness
Finally, the development of the creative solution to the awareness issue, using thumbnail images of all Volvo models on all promotional packs, radically improved the precision of Volvo's targeting, providing more accurate and self-selecting modeling of likely prospect groups.
The results are impressive. As an example, by following up the extra data leads generated by the initial campaign for the Volvo S60, an uplift in response was achieved of 276 per cent.