
The Megane Experiment
Issue 17 | December 2010
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director, Publicis London: Tom Ewart, Adam Kean; Creative Director/Copywriter, Publicis London: Ed Robinson; Art Director, Publicis London: Dave Hillyard; Digital Art Director, Publicis Modem: Christian Horsfall; Digital Copywriter, Publicis Modem: Ian Sweeney; Digital Creative Director, Publicis Modem: Alix Pennycuick; Creatives: Robert Amstell & Matthew Lancod
Production Team
Director, Smuggler: Henry Alix-Rubin; Producers, Smuggler: Drew Santarsiero, Ray Leakey; Agency Producers: Jow Bagnall, Colin Hickson; Designer/Typographer, This is Real Art: Paul Belford; Photographer: Paul Murphy, Mark Wesley
Date
Teasers 25 July 2010, main launch 5 Aug 2010
Background
Publicis noticed a strong statistical relationship between towns with higher Renault Mégane sales and those with higher rates of fertility, happiness and life expectancy. Coincidence? The Mégane Experiment became the true story of one man’s journey to discover whether a car can change a town.
Claude, from Menton, Côte d' Azur, France (with 21 Renault Méganes) was sent to Gisburn, Lancashire, UK (0 Renault Méganes) to observe what happened when he introduced the town to his car and to his joie de vivre.
The resulting unscripted film provoked huge controversy and genuinely impacted the lives of the people involved: the residents of Gisburn have since applied to twin their town with Menton.
Idea
The Renault Mégane sells well in France, the home of joie de vivre. So a very public and controversial experiment was conducted to prove this statistical observation: towns with higher Mégane sales tend to have more joie de vivre. The Megane Experiment campaign asked, ‘Can a car change a town?’ Claude, from Menton, went to Gisburn, Lancashire, with a Megane and a sunny outlook on life.
The campaign launched through TV, press, PR, online display and online viral seeding. Each initially compared Gisburn with Menton highlighting Gisburn’s lack of joie de vivre before the second phase built on the idea that joie de vivre and Mégane are inseparable.
All media drove consumers to TheMeganeExperiment.com where people could follow Claude’s journey, view the video content including an 11 minute documentary, play joie de vivre games and join Claude’s Facebook page.
Results
So far the campaign has generated 535 million media impressions, over 260,000 unique visitors to the microsite with 25,000 views of the documentary. Rich banners achieved a CTR of 0.10% and Youtube branded content has exceeded 150,000 views. Claude has got 11,300 Facebook fans and is still conversing with them.
Detailed figures for Mégane sales, brochure and test drive requests have yet to be assembled but in the meantime, the residents of Gisburn have applied to twin their town with Menton and they have also set up a local Zumba class.
Our Thoughts
Renault have struggled for years to bring genuine ‘va va voom’ to their advertising. They may have talked about joyousness but have seldom actually been joyous. Until now. This idea and the documentary and videos that go with it are sunnily sweet-natured. There is an authenticity which is genuinely touching as Claude sets about teaching Gisburn to lighten up a little.
If the car is the co-star, it is not incidental to the idea. It is slap-bang at the heart of it. The whole campaign is a brilliant example of branding at work. My only slight cavil is the press advertising, which is beautifully art directed but which feels manufactured where the rest of the campaign does not. Definitely a five-star rating.