Rain Hunters
Federal-Mogul
Issue 30 | March 2014
Agency
BBDO
Creative Team
Creative Directors Chris Goossens Sebastien De Valck Arnaud Pitz Henny Van Gerwen Art Director Thierry Wiebking Copywriters Bart Van Goethem Robbie Cap Online Copywriter Sofie Willems DM Copywriter Tom de Block Head of Design Eric Leurquin Online Designers Guillaume Janne Robbie Bardijn Graphic Designer Jorrit Michiels
Other Credits
Managing Director Client Service Isabel Peeters Account Team Elke De Witte Stefan Paesschesoone Online Creative Director Jan Algoed Digital Project Manager Wouter Has Production Company Who Killed Joe Producers David Vermander Alexandra Lannoy Director Koen Van Sande
Date
21-25 October 2013
Background
Champion, the premium brand of wipers from Federal Mogul, needed to refresh their brand image internationally. At the same time they wanted to launch a new range of wipers. The target group were wiper distributors and installers in 9 European countries.
Idea
The idea started with a new positioning line: Champion. We love rain.
In a rational and technical market, this was a differentiating emotional insight. Now all Champion had to do was prove it.
Eric the Rain Hunter was sent to the wettest place in Europe, Bergen in Norway, to put the new wipers to the test and to collect as much rain as possible in his specially modified Ford Mustang.
For five days the Rain Hunter drove around, filling his basin. His adventures were filmed and edited into five episodes.
The core target audience was mailed postcards from Norway and emailed a trailer for the films. And they were challenged to become Rain Hunters too, in an online game.
They were given data about rainfall in 150 European cities. They had to decide on a route across the region which would capture them as much rain as possible.
They could change their route from day to day, depending on the weather forecast.
Each day they got to see how much rain they had collected, how they were doing in the competition and another webisode of the film.
Results
In the target group there were 4568 distributors and installers in 9 countries. 1992 of them visited the site. That’s a 43.6% response rate. Average time spent on site was 5:05 minutes
Our Thoughts
If the message you want to get out to influencers and distributors of windscreen wipers internationally is “no-one loves rain as much as we do”, then why not lots of silliness in the wettest place on earth? Here’s a big and well-executed engagement idea, which looks like it was a lots of fun to make.
I was expecting there to be a prize for all the distributers and installers who were invited to be ‘rain hunters’, but it seems their shared love of rain was enough, as nearly 50% got hunting.