MINI Case Study

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for MINI Countryman Driving awareness for the intrepid new SUV with high-impact video and groundbreaking attention metrics

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for MINI Countryman Driving awareness for the intrepid new SUV with high-impact video and groundbreaking attention metrics

DRIVE

The challenge

To coincide with the launch of the new MINI Countryman this summer, MINI approached Wavemaker and GumGum for a standout campaign, to boost brand awareness and consideration of the car as a serious competitor in the smaller SUV market. This was designed to target MINI’s key growth audiences of young families with a passion for the outdoors, along with “responsible hedonists”: eco-conscious adventurers who gravitate to the brand, especially the MINI Countryman Plug-In Hybrid.

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Insight & strategy

The plan was also to surround positive reviews of MINI Countryman to accelerate purchasing decisions, along with targeting less positive reviews of other small SUVs, placing MINI ahead of its competitors. All contextual targeting efforts would enhance the perception of the MINI Countryman as the first car in a young family household, and also as a more adventurous type of SUV.

The team planned to use proprietary image recognition and text-mining technology to surface MINI Countryman ads alongside relevant content in premium titles. GumGum's contextual targeting technology, Verity™, would identify granular content environments – for example, content around SUVs, parenting, outdoor lifestyle and sustainability – to build awareness of MINI Countryman among key family-and adventure-orientated audiences.

The challenge

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Activation

In addition, we partnered with eye-tracking advertising research company, Lumen Research in a pioneering move to measure the campaign’s attention metrics. As brands look to connect with target audiences in a more meaningful way, attention is emerging as a new and increasingly important value of campaign success. Taking into account factors such as dwell time and scroll rate, it’s a deeper measure of user engagement compared to standard industry metrics.

The team developed original campaign creatives capturing relatable scenes of family outings, along with striking outdoor landscapes, using an In-Screen Expandable – a high-impact unit that expands as the user swipes up (on mobile) or hovers (on desktop) – and In-Screen Embedded Video, which plays at the bottom of a screen with a user-initiated sound and banner. GumGum and Wavemaker designed a bespoke targeting strategy, placing Mini in amongst contextually relevant, premium environments across news, tech and lifestyle content.

In-SCREEN EXPANDABLE

In-SCREEN EMBEDDED VIDEO

Insight & strategy

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Breaking new frontiers in measurement, the Lumen study showed that, for attention per 5,725+ impressions, the In-Screen test ad commanded 2.7x higher attention than the Double Mid-page Unit ad it was tested against. The average dwell time for the GumGum ad was similarly impressive, performing 2.6x better than other high impact formats, while its average viewable time was 6x higher.

5,725+

2.7x

2.6x

Impressions

Higher Attention

Better than other High-impact Formats

Avg Viewable Time was 6x Higher

Standard metrics from the campaign were just as compelling. The In-Screen Expandable unit was a top performer, with a click-through rate of 0.94% and viewability of 93.7%. The campaign easily outdid engagement benchmarks, too, with a 6.39% desktop engagement rate and a 12.78% mobile engagement.

Click-through Rate

0.94%

Viewability

93.7%

Desktop Engagement

6.39%

12.78%

Little wonder, then, that the MINI Countryman unit was perceived as more positive, suitable and premium compared to other car ads in the Lumen analysis, with higher-than-average levels of recall. It also held a tantalizing element of intrigue: half of respondents wanted to know more.

Results

Mobile Engagement

Activation

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