With a new driving test coming into force in December 2017, businesses involved in the process of learning to drive are flooding the market with useful advice for young drivers. How to stand out and create true empathy with young people is the challenge for Mobas and Marmalade.
It is customer insight that has won the day. Mobas identified that the same cohort who would be the first to take the new driving test had also been the first to sit new GCSE and A-level exams. An examination of their social traffic showed that they already had a sense of being ‘guinea pigs’ – disadvantaged by being the trial subjects for these critical exams.
As a champion of young drivers, Marmalade has a natural affinity with its audience and so the Go Team Guinea Pig campaign is the ideal way of demonstrating the company’s deep understanding of the difficulties faced by young people and creating an affinity with them. Backed with practical help and advice, the campaign captures the spirit of this young audience, who are challenged but not defeated.
The campaign was pre-tested using online focus groups to ensure that its assumptions were well founded. The response was enormously positive. One responder captured the mood of the group when they said: ‘Ever since the new A-levels and GCSEs were introduced I would definitely agree that people my age have been used as guinea pigs, by the Government and the education system in general’.
The eye-catching new campaign went live on Monday 20th November. It was created by Mobas and is being implemented by Marmalade across its marketing channels including paid social, content and PR.
Shelby Haslam, Head of Strategy at Mobas and Consultant Marketing Director for Marmalade, comments: "This is a campaign that has sprung from a natural outpouring of post-exam emotion from young people on social media. We wanted to build a campaign that was unique in the way in which it creates an emotional connection, and with #TeamGuineaPig we believe we have it. While this is a brand-led campaign, the response to the test creative suggests that young people exposed to the message will be considerably more likely to consider Marmalade for insurance – showing how evocative brand messaging can convert to sales. We are looking forward to analysing the resulting uplift".
