Vauxhall ran a cross-platform campaign with the Telegraph in order to prove the power of newsbrands.

1. Best Newsbrands Campaign
Vauxhall Retail
Summary
Vauxhall’s retail campaigns had remained unchanged for several years with a focus on consistent
half pages throughout the year to achieve awareness. Under pressure for more accountable digital
opportunities however the plans needed to evolve in order to justify their continued spend. By
creating a cross-platform case study with the Telegraph we were able to prove the worth of
newsbrands, maximising their traditional measures of success but also creating a campaign which
worked throughout the purchase funnel in driving actions and leads.
Background and Objectives
Vauxhall have long been been heavy spenders within national press with the majority of this budget
spent on their retail campaigns predominantly pushing finance offers. With a long consideration
phase which can commence at any time of year, press has traditionally been used for an awareness
role with half page formats consistently drip-fed throughout with the aim of appearing ‘always-on’
and present whenever someone starts to consider buying a new car.
This strategy however had left newsbrand activity with a very limited remit, operating only at the
top of the purchase funnel and able only to report against reach and frequency metrics. As digital
spend became more important and able to prove efficient spend accountable all the way to actual
purchase press could no longer justify large spends without expanding its role and being able to
quantifiably prove the effect our advertising was having
Insight and Strategy
We believed that by expanding from solely printed half pages to running across newsbrand’s entire
portfolio of platforms that we could:
 Be more effective at our traditional KPI through gaining incremental reach
 Prove the effectiveness of both traditional press activity and the cumulative effect of
running multi-platform campaigns on brand metrics through research
 Expand the remit of newsbrand activity to operate throughout the purchase funnel,
delivering against KPIs at the final consideration and purchase stage
The Plan
In Q1 2013 we developed and ran a package of activity with the Telegraph to act as a case study and
testing ground for a holistic newsbrands approach.
Alongside our traditional activity with other newsbrand partners, the Telegraph activity consisted of:
 Half pages in the Daily and Sunday Telegraph
 MPUs and leaderboards on telegraph.co.uk behaviourally targeted to in-market car buyers
 Week long HPTO of the motoring channel on telegraph.co.uk

2.  Mobile banners spread consistently throughout the campaign
 iPad tenancy for the duration of the campaign
Results
The campaign proved highly successful in all areas. Using NRS PADD data we were able to show that
we can increase reach by using multiple platforms. Our activity with the Telegraph reached 5.8m
people, up from 3.2m with the same spend the year prior.
We saw print was successful in driving positive brand metrics with a 24% uplift in positive brand
image from those who saw the campaign on one platform, but importantly we also proved that the
combination of platforms reinforces this message with a 57% uplift for those who saw the campaign
on multiple platforms.
The same research showed purchase intent increased 26% from exposure on one platform, and 49%
for cross-platform but crucially however we were able to go beyond this and look directly at actions
and lead generation. Through digital metrics newsbrands proved truly accountable for the first time.
CTRs were recorded with user actions tracked through on the Vauxhall site. Besides actions, this
also worked for lead generation, and
provided a pool of users for us to retarget with other brand and retail messages, adding to the
efficacy of other campaigns.
We achieved multiple objectives with this campaign, from proving the effectiveness of traditional
press, to showing how this was augmented by running on multiple platforms. We maximised our
performance against the traditional press KPIs at the top of the purchase funnel, but also expanded
the remit to compete with the performance and objectives of other media. In showing newsbrands
to be a holistic answer to all of the aims of Vauxhall’s retail campaigns we have used this case study
to implement the same strategy across other partners including the Guardian and Mail through the
rest of this year and to justify high levels of press investment running into 2014.
Client View

3. ‘In evolving our press plan to mirror the way consumers are accessing newsbrand’s content we have
successfully achieved greater efficiency, reach and value within our activity’ Nicola Jenkins, Head of
Retail Marketing