Company: Weber Shandwick, Beijing/Shanghai/Guangzhou, China
Company Description: Weber Shandwick is a leading global public relations firm in China with offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Our award-winning team of communication strategists deliver innovative solutions across a diverse range of disciplines, including consumer marketing, corporate reputation, healthcare, technology, public affairs, financial services, CSR and crisis management.
Nomination Category: Marketing Campaign Categories - Industry
Nomination Sub Category: Marketing Campaign of the Year - Automotive - Vehicles

Nomination Title: Denza #FuturePartners: An Electric Force for Change

Tell the story of this nominated marketing campaign for the judges (up to 650 words). Describe the genesis, planning, execution, and results to date of your campaign. TEXT REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION

Genesis: China’s struggle with pollution might suggest that electric vehicles, or EVs, would be an easy sell. Not so. As wages have risen, so too has the demand for foreign gas-guzzling machines. But BDNT (a partnership between Chinese high-tech enterprise BYD and Daimler) saw an opportunity. Government support and growing infrastructure made driving EVs in China an increasingly viable option for consumers.

As the firm prepared to launch DENZA, China's first premium EV, it faced two challenges: (1) convincing a largely skeptical public to adopt EVs, and (2) competing against the auto industry’s biggest brands for influence in the category.

BDNT challenged the agency to drive a campaign that would place DENZA among the Top Five EV brands in China in terms of share-of-voice, directly engage with at least 100,000 social media followers, win at least two auto awards and achieve 300% return-on-investment in press coverage by December 2014.

Development: Even though the target consumers of young, middle-class families had not yet fully embraced EVs as a part of their lives, the agency discovered through research that they shared DENZA’s core belief in making changes today to effect a brighter tomorrow. This applied across every aspect of their lives –including children, education, career and the environment.

This provoked a thought: could DENZA play a role in rallying the belief that simple changes made today can have a huge impact on tomorrow? This underlying rationale behind the #FuturePartners movement, would not only be instrumental in positioning DENZA as a force for change, but also drawing attention to how its green technology is helping bring about a positive future.

Execution and Performance: First, the brand engaged with China’s auto experts and key industry influencers in a forum to discuss concerns and doubts about EVs. This equipped this key group of opinion leaders with an understanding of DENZA’s technology that they were able to share with their networks.

Meanwhile, key influencers whose audiences matched with DENZA’s were engaged to kick-start the conversation on “How would you change your future?”. Hashtagged #FuturePartners, the topic instantly resonated with their followers. The conversation touched on the roles of education, travel, and exercise, as well as topics that reflected on DENZA’s role in helping bring positive change, including innovative thinking and being environmentally-friendly.

The conversations helped build DENZA’s profile, drawing attention to the car, its features, and advanced Sino-German engineering. A virtual test drive mini-game was launched which allowed players to race each other. Within just 12 hours of its launch, over 5,000 people were playing the game, ballooning to 34,000 soon after.

A test drive program involving a group of 64 industry specialists, media and consumers resulted in over 80% sharing positive feedback on their experience with their social networks.

Results: In just one year DENZA has emerged from an unknown brand to among the most recognised, awarded and influential names in the EV category. #FuturePartners became the #1 brand-led topic on China’s most popular social media network Sina Weibo in the week of the Beijing Auto Show, even before the vehicles were launched. #FuturePartners was used 240,000 times and generated a total of 85million in just 12 days. Over 10,000 pieces of print and electronic coverage were generated including positive reviews in the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal.

The PR-led, integrated campaign helped the brand win 12 industry awards, including “Best New Energy Vehicle” from International Business Daily and “The Most Anticipated New Energy Vehicle of 2014” from Economic Observer.

Over 320 million social media impressions were generated, with videos of its inaugural model viewed more than 2.1 million times. The strength of the #FuturePartners campaign resulted in healthy demand for the car upon its launch. Nine dealerships signed on to sell DENZA as a result of the consumer interest.

Hu Xiaoqing, marketing director for DENZA commented: “Together, we have made huge progress. The agency has proven itself to be the top communication team for EVs in China .”

In bullet-list form, briefly summarize up to ten (10) of the chief features and results of the nominated campaign (up to 150 words).