ABOUT

The Brief:
Despite a great line-up of cars and brilliant value for money, Suzuki remained neutral in consumers’ minds. Our task was two-fold: to evolve Suzuki’s Good Different platform while simultaneously launching new Swift.

The Swift had won plaudits with reviewers and at awards, but it failed to register in the mind of most car buyers.

Concept:
Our creative challenge was neutrality. We needed to put Suzuki on people’s radar and get them test driving new Swift. But in a crowded car market packed with overfamiliar cliches, we needed a unique approach.

Speaking to Suzuki owners revealed pride. A tribe who’ve gone against the grain, and it's paid off (“I’ve heard of it before but didn’t consider it. Suzuki just isn’t on my radar”), so we turned our weakness into our virtue.

Despite making the ‘Best Affordable Hybrid’ on the market, Suzuki wasn't getting the positive recognition it deserved. We needed to overcome neutrality and firmly put Suzuki on people’s shortlist to test drive. New Swift offered the perfect launchpad to do so.

We seized the ideal cultural moment: many automotive brands were abandoning their supermini drivers, discontinuing the likes of Fiesta, Micra and Rio to focus on larger electric vehicles. We saw this as an opportunity to win a new conquest audience: The Sweet Spot Seekers: Supermini drivers who crave value without compromise and aren’t ready to go full-electric just yet.

But, to win their hearts in a crowded category where creative has become a bit overfamiliar (insert sweeping mountains, city drive-bys, neon-lit rainy nights) we had to do something unexpected... Especially with the brand platform, ‘Good Different’.

Based on the truth Suzuki owners are proud to own the best kept secret on the road (and would rather keep it that way), we decided that, instead of flaunting new Swift, we would hide it.

Execution:
Catering for Brits’ famously understated sense of humour, we felt it was high-time to bring back a real car ad, one that entertains and intrigues. We didn't have the media bucks of larger players, but we did have the backing of brave clients willing to buck the trend and challenge with something that would transcend the media budget.

It’s human nature that when you find a hidden gem, a restaurant, a new band, or a fashion label, you don’t want everyone else finding out. It’s also human nature that if you stop someone seeing something, they’ll want to see it even more. With these twin themes at play, we set out to entertain via the ingenious lengths Suzuki owners would go to keep their beloved Swifts a secret.

We open on a security guard witnessing a hidden Swift manoeuvring out of a trolley-hut, we see one owner shake a tree, burying her Swift under a mound of autumn leaves. Another playfully snuffs out a streetlight, smothering it in darkness, while elsewhere a Swift parks behind a perfectly trimmed hedge, in the shape of a Swift. A middle-aged couple even disguise their Swift beneath an old car cover. Our Swift owners grasp every opportunity to keep their beloved Swift to themselves.
Results:

As a challenger brand we had to outsmart where we couldn’t outspend, and punch above our weight creatively… And it worked! Trade praised us for ‘defying category conventions’ and, vitally, our ad captured our audience’s attention. We have firmly put Suzuki and the new Swift on our audience’s radar, helping to overcome their neutrality issue to improve overall brand health while simultaneously driving sales.

Brand tracking studies revealed significant ad recall, with both the UK and Ireland surpassing category benchmarks by over 190%. We also saw a significant uplift in affinity scores towards Suzuki vs category benchmarks across the UK (20% uplift). This has directly increased consideration of Suzuki by 10% and, importantly, translated to sales, surpassing forecasts by 32%!