Savvy bargain hunters need savvy media options

Campaign overview

Turners Auctions sells more cars than anyone else in New Zealand. But an awful lot of people didn’t know that. Turners wanted a cost-effective, yet wide-ranging campaign to attract more secondhand car buyers and increase sales.

An ad panel that appeared on high-traffic sites such as SmileCity

Objectives

Working with Turner’s agency Brave New World, a multi-channel approach determined a three-tiered goal: 1. Make them understand: Turners had to become easy and relevant for the secondhand car buyer. 2. Ongoing engagement: Just telling people why they should buy a car at auction wouldn’t be enough. Turners had to educate, engage and provide information and knowledge to back up the reasons to buy at auction. 3. Target smartly: As the target audience for this promotion was savvy bargain hunters, savvy media options had to grab attention and persuade people to act.

Target Audience

Secondhand vehicle buyers, with a strong bargain-hunting ethic.

Channels

Touchpoint implemented/managed the following components of the campaign:

• Web
• Text messaging
• Email
• Radio
• Print

Turners True Market Challenge

The campaign leveraged Turner’s competitive sweet spot – it sells more cars than any organisation in New Zealand. It had the sales data to back up its claim, and by providing car hunters with free access to the past 18 months’ data it was able to ‘challenge’ people to discover sales-based valuations for vehicles of interest.

Brave and Touchpoint developed a system to enable people to select a car make and model by text or via the website (www.turnerschallenge.co.nz) and receive the actual prices paid for that car at Turners Auctions. This was the first time that the car buying public of New Zealand had access to the real prices that real people had paid for real cars.

Customers could search car prices by make or model, and find out prices paid at previous auctions.

Press and radio ads featured either a Txt4Info text code or the website address as the call to action. Regular prize offers provided further incentive. Once involved, participants were invited to receive weekly auction alert emails informing them of upcoming auctions at their local Turners branch. These emails also served to educate recipients about Turners Finance, Turners Certified (their comprehensive inspection service) and Turners Live (their online viewing and bidding system). The True Market Challenge website and auction alert emails promoted the grand prize of a $10,000 trip for two to Melbourne to enjoy the Grand Prix and the city’s shopping. To enter this draw, participants had to attend a Turners Auction and register to bid onsite.

How Touchpoint Technology Helped

Touchpoint delivered the digital communications platform, database and campaign management modules.

• Txt4info – a response service that lets consumers respond to traditional advertising using their mobile phones – captured responses from advertising and managed txt requests for historical vehicle sales information
• Automated email management of web-based requests for historical vehicle sales information; and weekly auction alert emails informing customers of upcoming auctions
• Tracked campaign participation and behaviour
• Provided dashboard management of database and campaign delivery

Campaign results

In just over two months, the Turners True Market Challenge recorded 86,000 price checks. Much more importantly, Turners car sales were up 20 percent over that time period. More than 80 percent of those using the service were new to Turners. Correspondingly, the number of punters attending Turners auctions also increased.

Google AdWords generated 33,000 click-throughs to the Challenge website. Banner traffic was also significant, with a further 20,000 click-throughs originating from banner placement on Trade Me.

The campaign was initially set to run for two months, but was so successful that the service is still available to the many thousands who continue using it.