Audi TV connection
Twitter has been pushing for brands to strengthen the impact of TV ads by sending out corresponding tweets on the social network that give the messaging longer legs. The idea is that a user engaged enough with a TV show to tweet about it is very likely to have seen the commercials and is a perfect target for promoted tweets.
Showcasing this approach, Audi waged a full-scale offensive this summer with a multiscreen effort surrounding the mystery series “Pretty Little Liars” on ABC Family, which was tied to the A3 launch.
The show’s audience demographics fit the income range Audi was looking to hit with the aggressively priced A3, which starts at $30,795 including shipping, and it performed strongly among women. Plus, “Pretty Little Liars” has a built-in reach stemming from its legion of 2.46 million Twitter followers.
In addition to running A3 ads during the show’s commercial breaks, Audi took its outreach a step further by directing tweeters to its Snapchat mobile account, where it posted video clues and puzzles of what would happen next in the episode.
Although Snapchat videos can be viewed for just a few seconds before disappearing, people took screenshots of the clues and distributed them on Twitter.
Audi had to work closely with the “Pretty Little Liars” creative team to keep up with the plotline so it could develop content for the campaign. Ian Harding, one of the show’s stars, sometimes tweeted clues.
The Twitter push drew 876,000 engagements overall, and the campaign’s #PLLAudi hashtag was mentioned nearly 30,000 times. The promotion resulted in 487 million social impressions on networks, including Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook.
While finding a direct correlation to sales in a campaign like this is difficult, a Nielsen brand effect study found that Audi awareness ticked upward among those who were exposed to it. Nielsen based the research on a control group, which wasn’t exposed to the campaign, and another group that was.
When people were asked what cars came to mind when they thought of the luxury sector, Audi responses rose 30 percent among those who saw the “Pretty Little Liars” campaign. In addition, opinions of Audi became 56 percent more favorable among the exposed group.
Audi’s efforts were successful because the brand’s content was authentic to each channel it was shared on, said Anna Russell, Audi of America’s general manager for brand marketing.
Twitter, she says, is well-suited for awareness campaigns that can raise favorability among potential buyers. Russell said Audi sometimes gets anecdotal feedback from people who bought cars because of Twitter.
“It’s not about just inserting yourself into a conversation,” Russell said. It’s about “bringing added value.”
In another instance of connecting Twitter to commercials, Jaguar -- through Twitter TV ad targeting -- amplified the messaging of its “Your Turn” F-Type marketing campaign in 2013 by funneling promoted tweets to people who live-tweeted about TV shows that were flanked by Jaguar’s commercials.
MarketShare’s analysis found that when auto marketers run TV spots and Twitter ads in a coordinated effort, there’s a 19 percent higher return on investment than when running solo TV ads without a related tweet. A Twitter Ad can take the form of a promoted tweet, a promoted account or a promoted trend, which shows up on the list of trending topics.
