Europcar launches its first TV ads in £2.5m campaign

By Ben Bold, marketingmagazine.co.uk, Friday, 03 June 2011 09:09AM

Europcar is launching what it claims is its first-ever TV ad, a £2.5m singing-and-dancing campaign to promote the firm's new "freeDeliver" service, which delivers and collects customers' rental cars.

Europcar: debut TV ads promote freeDeliver service

The primetime TV work will run throughout the summer. It goes live on ITV1 this weekend, during ad breaks tonight (3 June) for 'Coronation Street', and during tomorrow's 'Britain's Got Talent'. The TV ads will be supported with outdoor, train, tube, taxi and digital advertising, as well as social and PR activity.

The creative, which has been devised by Ogilvy & Mather, highlights the benefits of Europcar's freeDeliver service and poses the question "what would you do with the hour you save?".

The TV ad depicts a man killing time at home while waiting for his rental car to arrive, by dancing to 1990s club track 'Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)'. His dance routine is interrupted by the ringing of his doorbell and arrival of his hire car.

Ken McCall, Europcar UK's managing director, said: "We are aiming to challenge the status quo of the car-hire market with freeDeliver.

"As the market leaders, I think we need to set the benchmark for a new customer-focused car-hire service for leisure travellers and freeDeliver is just one of the initiatives we are developing to achieve this.

The media planning and buying is being handled by MediaVest. The agency has also planned ad exposure on video-on-demand sites including ITV.com and 4oD, and has negotiated a sponsorship of MSN's newly created travel section.

The social media element of the campaign, which has been developed by Fortune Cookie and Bigmouthmedia, is being focused on asking people" "What would you do with the hour you save?" It is being concentrated on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, with the TV ad being seeded on the latter.

Consumer PR activity is being managed by Harrison Sadler.

Earlier this year, O&M managed to retain its hold on Europcar's UK and pan-European ad account. The agency's London office held on to the UK business after a pitch against Euro RSCG and Inferno, while O&M Paris retained the pan-European business in a separate review.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk