Chevrolet builds buzz for three letters: HHR
Last July, Chevy welcomed the newest member of its family, known by three letters: HHR. The sport utility vehicle needed a unique and integrated campaign to get the word — or in this case, the letters — out.
“We wanted consumers to seize the name and wanted to let people get used to hearing and knowing these letters,” says Steve McGuire, then-marketing manager at HHR.
To that end Chevy staged a contest, housed at hhrya.com, that challenged consumers to find the most creative ways to display the three letters in the places they lived and worked. From July to September, consumers uploaded stills and videos to the site for judging by other viewers. Each week, winners had their pick of an Apple iPod or an XM2Go.
“We relentlessly seeded the HHR name throughout the country’s media and public life,” says Andrea Wells, executive VP and Chevrolet account director at Campbell-Ewald. “Every venue was fair game. From television placements to high-profile stunts, consumers created intrigue in the HHR name and hhrya.com with their brash and inventive marketing.”
The contest culminated with a commercial juggernaut during the Sept. 22 airing of NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
“The Tonight Show was used as a hook to entice participants for more creative stunts, as the winning entries would be showcased within the September programming,” Wells says.
Online banner ads on Yahoo and NBC.com invited consumers to tune into the show. Tune-in ads also ran during NBC’s programs.
For the show, Chevy locked up all 17 minutes of the program’s commercial time. Regularly scheduled commercials were replaced with pre-recorded Chevy HHR segments for the entire program.
Commercial slots were devoted to comedy segments about the HHR, featuring comedian Andy Dick. In vignettes, he explained the promotion, showcased the entries, presented the five finalists and revealed the contest winner.
“[The show] has incredible reach,” McGuire says. “It was a perfect fit between the demo who watched the Leno show and who we were trying to reach for the HHR. It’s an incredible show for reaching broad demographic groups.”
The build-up paid off for both Chevy and The Tonight Show: household ratings for the Sept. 22 episode soared 20% versus a typical night.
There were 1,203 entries in the promotion and 54,784 votes were cast. Contest winner, John Walker, had carved the letters “HHR” in a cornfield to attract the attention of airplane and helicopter flybys.
The Tonight Show tie-in also helped Chevy reach its target of 18- to 34 year-old consumers, most of whom are “resistant to vehicles lacking personality and attitude.” The stint was a key component to integrate messages that would roll seamlessly into the HHR launch, McGuire says.
“We thought that a late-night program such as The Tonight Show was the perfect environment to do something beyond the traditional commercial,” Wells says. “We made sure that the product was the focus of the submitted content. However, we also tried to give people a few laughs, which is what they are seeking from the late-night genre of TV programming.”
During the promotion, traffic at the HHR sub-site on chevy.com soared more than 200% versus the two months prior. A total 500,000 unique sessions were generated.
By the end of 2005, 50% of all HHR sales originated from non-GM vehicle owners and GM doubled its 60,000 units per year output to meet demand.
“The promotion reached our objectives and at some points exceeded them,” McGuire says.
- CAMPAIGN: HHRya Launch
- AGENCY: Campbell-Ewald
- CLIENT: GM/Chevrolet
