Publicis Sapient - Bridgestone Performance Institute Campaign

Company: Publicis Sapient
Company Description: Publicis Sapient, the digital business transformation hub of Publicis Groupe, helps clients drive growth and efficiency and evolve the ways they work, in a world where consumer behavior and technology are catalyzing social and commercial change at an unprecedented pace.
Nomination Category: Marketing Campaign Categories - Industry
Nomination Sub Category: Marketing Campaign of the Year - Automotive - Aftermarket

Nomination Title: 2018 Bridgestone Performance Institute

With Bridgestone’s second sponsorship of an Olympic Games (Pyeongchang 2018), they wanted to build on what we helped them accomplish with their first sponsorship (Rio 2016). This was a great opportunity, as well as a great challenge, as our Rio 2016 experience helped them achieve a prominent standing among the most well-known brands in the world — even beating out McDonald’s and Visa as the #3 Olympics sponsor during one week in August. In order to further cement their status as a leading global tire brand, our new experience would need to truly capture the hearts and minds of fans around the world.

We created a unique digital hub centered around five charismatic U.S. Olympic hopefuls — the athletes of Team Bridgestone — and the idea of “clutch performance,” (the defining moment that makes the difference in competition and on the road). Each athlete received their own dedicated page featuring interviews and personal stories, as well as their thoughts on what “clutch performance” meant to them. But that wasn’t all.

We needed to see clutch performance from our athletes. So after their interviews, we put them to the test — whisking them off for some interesting clutch challenges. Whether they were answering random, crowdsourced, rapid-fire questions; playing a giant game of Jenga; surprising aspiring young fans; reacting to an “extreme” test drive on Bridgestone tires; or even playing air hockey on an ice hockey rink, we put the athletes in situations where their “off-camera” personalities could shine.

Since our creative strategy dovetailed with the media strategy (having a digital hub on BridgestoneTire.com) we were able to feature our five Olympic hopefuls where the audience was always a click away from the tires themselves. The content was light and fun and underscored the idea of “clutch performance,” which was of key concern to this safety-minded audience as they move down the funnel towards a purchase. In 2018, we pioneered a new “Clutch Performance” landing page dedicated to elevating Bridgestone’s sports sponsorships: BridgestoneTire.com/clutchperformance. This page was responsive and optimized for mobile so that future content can be more efficiently and effectively featured.

Our audience is a young, mobile, and busy demographic who love the freedom technology gives them (translation: they’re addicted to their phones). Our 2018 content strategy was to keep everything snackable, preferably at two-minutes or less per segment. This helped a lot, as our average site visit lasted longer than 10 minutes. Ten percent, most of which was allocated for capturing digital display and pre-roll. The Winter Olympic Games saw a 30% drop in viewership compared with that of the Summer Games.

This lighthearted content proved to be a hit, with an average time per site visit of over 10 minutes. But that wasn’t all: Bridgestone’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram channels earned over 200 million total impressions. This was all excellent exposure for Bridgestone’s brand — and for awareness around their commitment to clutch performance. In fact, Q1 tire searches on Bridgestone’s main site grew 186% over the same quarter in 2017.

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

-The average time per site visit of over 10 minutes
-Bridgestone’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram channels earned over 200 million total impressions
-Q1 tire searches on Bridgestone’s main site grew 186% over the same quarter in 2017
-Working with an austere budget, we created a responsive .com digital experience with rich content that was optimized for mobile.
-Our experience immersed our target — constantly active male and female sports enthusiasts — in this idea through their preferred means of consumption: Bite-sized, mobile-optimized content.
-Our 2018 content strategy was to keep everything snackable, preferably at two-minutes or less per segment.