S
taying relevant for a familiar brand can be a big challenge. Based on our experience with keeping storied brands like Pabst Blue Ribbon, American Airlines and Subaru relevant, The Marketing Arm recruited Positive Brand to apply that experience to the challenges facing their client Goodyear.
Research and Insights
When TMA turned to us for help, we began, like always, with research. We wanted to understand their customer, their frictions and fuels for making purchase decisions, and their interests and attitudes around vehicle ownership, family, travel, and recreation. So we visited Wal-Mart tire centers, attended NASCAR events with our friends at Interstate Batteries, went on road trips with friends and family, and did everything short of getting run over by a set of white walls in our effort to better understand the customer’s relationship with this brand. Then we made tracks.
Creative Solution
We learned a lot. Our customers are brand loyalists when it comes to supporting their families. They feel a sense of responsibility when it comes to safety and a sense of stewardship when it comes to their vehicles. And we discovered that our customers love sports. Their vehicles get them to soccer matches and family baseball games as well as professional sports venues. And when it comes to tires, they love fantasizing about joining a NASCAR pit crew.
EVENT MARKETING. We created the ultimate NASCAR experience and invited shoppers and employees alike to literally feel what it’s like on race day.
LOYALTY PROGRAM. To encourage brand loyalty, we invited customers personally to join our club. And we rewarded them with exclusive perks and privileges.
PROFESSIONAL SPORTS SPONSORSHIP. We developed this campaign for their sponsorship of the Cavaliers. By adding animated wings to the feet of a basketball player, we made the winged foot logo of Goodyear a natural part of the game.
WIN BACK CAMPAIGN. There is a certain segment of the Goodyear customer database that has stubbornly refused to return to the store. It takes creativity to change people’s minds.
Outcomes
“We had received a big assignment from Goodyear. They needed our help to win back defecting customers and we needed as many great ideas as possible. I’ve had a long history with the Positive Brand team so I knew we would get great ideas that were on strategy and covered the full range — on the mark, on the fringe, and out of the box. They really know how to cover all the bases.”
—Nowell Upham, TMA/Goodyear