2022 Winner
BronzeBest in Branded Content
BRP Can-Am Off-Road
"Livin' the Land"
Touché!
"Livin' the Land"
Touché!
The all-terrain vehicle (ATV) category has always targeted farmers, hunters and ranchers. For this target, ATVs are more than recreational vehicles; they are essential to get their jobs done. Their objective was to sell all units of the Can-Am Defender, an all-terrain vehicle designed for
farmers and ranchers.
The pandemic changed the profile of this agricultural target. In fact, there was a noticeable increase of North Americans moving from the cities to rural areas. It brought new, young, digitally savvy consumers to the ATV category.
While these new farmers brought fresh money to the category, they represented a major targeting challenge. They account for only 2% of the North American population, they are poorly reached by mass media and most publications targeting them ceased publishing in the last decade.
First-party data could have helped capture these new farmers, but Can-AM does not have its own network of dealers. What’s more, independent dealers rarely shared back sales data with manufacturers. They believed they could fill this data gap with a clever and innovative content strategy.
Can-Am celebrated this new agricultural lifestyle by creating Livin’ the Land, a 4-episode content series that takes an in-depth look at this new generation of farmers and hunters with a close connection to the land. Each episode features a cinematic, documentary-style narrative, and explores what drives the next generation of agriculture pioneers.
The first phase was a teaser campaign. It highlighted points of interest of the new agriculture enthusiasts such as sustainable farming and family-run agricultural inspiration. It also integrated a YouTube sequencing tactic that allowed them to find true farming enthusiasts with teasers and then expose those enthusiasts to a full-length episode.
It then broadcasted all four episodes in-content with the most influential agricultural TV station in the USA, RFD TV. It negotiated a memorable content integration; one of Can-Am’s brand ambassadors, Alex Templeton, a third-generation female farmer, told her story on Rural America Live in front of hundreds of thousands of American farmers. Finally, it leveraged a live audience through an open line that allowed viewers to speak directly with Alex.
Each episode was also broadcast on YouTube and promoted by social, programmatic and targeted partnerships. This digital footprint allowed it to build new precise agriculture sub-targets (new versus legacy farmers, Northern vs. Southern rangers, men vs. women agriculture pioneers). As the campaign evolved, analytics guided what was the most relevant episode to push for each sub-target.
After a few controlled expositions to the documentary, it switched to promotional offers. The delivery of these promo offers was adjusted with the level of inventory per region and each consumer was directed to the nearest dealer.
Competitors did not capture the rapid evolution of North American agriculture, and misrepresent North American farmers and ranchers in their ads. They still portrayed them as older and unsophisticated. In this campaign, Can-Am turned the industry upside down and truly represented the inspiring new farmers and ranchers with its content series Livin’ the Land.
Another innovative aspect of this campaign is that it didn’t have a strong set of primary data when kicking off the campaign, but believed it could fill this data gap with a clever and innovative content strategy. By carefully analyzing who interacted with the content along the way, it gained valuable insights on this new target and closed the data gap. This allowed it to clearly identify the newcomers in the market and properly target them with episodes and ultimately, send them specific offers on the Defender based on their interests and the inventory in their region.
Its content strategy allowed it in a matter of eight weeks to build new audiences and fill the data gap faced at the beginning of the campaign. It successfully engaged a hard-to-reach audience and drove an incredible sales lift across North America.
The content series helped break a sales record for Can-Am; for the first time, the Defender was sold out before the end of the summer across North America.
The content strategy increased brand trust by 14%. A direct impact of customizing its content to this audience, showing the power of contextual advertising.
Social teasers and episodes reached over 2.8M farmers and ranchers with more than 10M
impressions. The YouTube sequencing propelled the series to another level of popularity with over 11M impressions and generated more than 1.5M views on the episodes and teaser.
Outside sponsored content generated over 3M impressions on outdoor enthusiasts through the LTL story on its website and other social/CRM push. Finally, PR efforts reached more than 5M impressions in AG partner publications.
farmers and ranchers.
The pandemic changed the profile of this agricultural target. In fact, there was a noticeable increase of North Americans moving from the cities to rural areas. It brought new, young, digitally savvy consumers to the ATV category.
While these new farmers brought fresh money to the category, they represented a major targeting challenge. They account for only 2% of the North American population, they are poorly reached by mass media and most publications targeting them ceased publishing in the last decade.
First-party data could have helped capture these new farmers, but Can-AM does not have its own network of dealers. What’s more, independent dealers rarely shared back sales data with manufacturers. They believed they could fill this data gap with a clever and innovative content strategy.
Can-Am celebrated this new agricultural lifestyle by creating Livin’ the Land, a 4-episode content series that takes an in-depth look at this new generation of farmers and hunters with a close connection to the land. Each episode features a cinematic, documentary-style narrative, and explores what drives the next generation of agriculture pioneers.
The first phase was a teaser campaign. It highlighted points of interest of the new agriculture enthusiasts such as sustainable farming and family-run agricultural inspiration. It also integrated a YouTube sequencing tactic that allowed them to find true farming enthusiasts with teasers and then expose those enthusiasts to a full-length episode.
It then broadcasted all four episodes in-content with the most influential agricultural TV station in the USA, RFD TV. It negotiated a memorable content integration; one of Can-Am’s brand ambassadors, Alex Templeton, a third-generation female farmer, told her story on Rural America Live in front of hundreds of thousands of American farmers. Finally, it leveraged a live audience through an open line that allowed viewers to speak directly with Alex.
Each episode was also broadcast on YouTube and promoted by social, programmatic and targeted partnerships. This digital footprint allowed it to build new precise agriculture sub-targets (new versus legacy farmers, Northern vs. Southern rangers, men vs. women agriculture pioneers). As the campaign evolved, analytics guided what was the most relevant episode to push for each sub-target.
After a few controlled expositions to the documentary, it switched to promotional offers. The delivery of these promo offers was adjusted with the level of inventory per region and each consumer was directed to the nearest dealer.
Competitors did not capture the rapid evolution of North American agriculture, and misrepresent North American farmers and ranchers in their ads. They still portrayed them as older and unsophisticated. In this campaign, Can-Am turned the industry upside down and truly represented the inspiring new farmers and ranchers with its content series Livin’ the Land.
Another innovative aspect of this campaign is that it didn’t have a strong set of primary data when kicking off the campaign, but believed it could fill this data gap with a clever and innovative content strategy. By carefully analyzing who interacted with the content along the way, it gained valuable insights on this new target and closed the data gap. This allowed it to clearly identify the newcomers in the market and properly target them with episodes and ultimately, send them specific offers on the Defender based on their interests and the inventory in their region.
Its content strategy allowed it in a matter of eight weeks to build new audiences and fill the data gap faced at the beginning of the campaign. It successfully engaged a hard-to-reach audience and drove an incredible sales lift across North America.
The content series helped break a sales record for Can-Am; for the first time, the Defender was sold out before the end of the summer across North America.
The content strategy increased brand trust by 14%. A direct impact of customizing its content to this audience, showing the power of contextual advertising.
Social teasers and episodes reached over 2.8M farmers and ranchers with more than 10M
impressions. The YouTube sequencing propelled the series to another level of popularity with over 11M impressions and generated more than 1.5M views on the episodes and teaser.
Outside sponsored content generated over 3M impressions on outdoor enthusiasts through the LTL story on its website and other social/CRM push. Finally, PR efforts reached more than 5M impressions in AG partner publications.
Credits
Touché!BRP
Cossette
M&H