2024 Winner
BronzeBest in Data
BC Honda Dealers Association
"New Car Frequency Illusion"
Jungle Media
"New Car Frequency Illusion"
Jungle Media
Honda was at a turning point. After several years of lower volume sales as previous model years of the CR-V aged with competitors becoming dominant, the new 2024 CR-V was set to re-establish Honda as a market leader and boost sales. But in the absence of higher marketing budgets, the brand couldn’t simply outspend the competitors in order to promote the new CR-V. Instead, they had to find a way to enhance the effectiveness of their ads.
One way to increase ad effectiveness is to find audiences who are already predisposed to entering a purchase consideration mindset for your product. A highly effective trigger for consideration is peer influence and the idea that people like you are making a decision to take an action.
So the agency built a solution around a psychological phenomenon known as the “Frequency Illusion” as a way to find audiences who had already been influenced by new car purchases of
those around them.
The “Frequency Illusion” is a cognitive bias where you notice something more frequently after becoming aware of it. So when you notice your neighbour’s new car, your brain starts to create sparks of recognition everytime you see that car elsewhere. Your subconscious starts to believe the car is everywhere and that acquiring one is normalised, often leading you to consider buying a
new car yourself.
The strategy was to leverage people feeling like they see a new CR-V or other compact SUV everywhere due to the frequency illusion, and capitalise on it with targeted advertising. The results validated their insight that if you see a neighbour who lives on your block buy a new car, you’re much more likely to enter consideration for a new car yourself.
The BC Honda Dealers were able to capitalise on this phenomenon to help trigger audiences into consideration mode, draw them to the website and boost sales for the new CR-V.
First, they had to determine a data source that would open the door to finding audiences who might be in the right mindset. The agency needed to design a platform that could identify the residential blocks of new car purchasers and advertise offers for the CR-V to other people there. They chose online desktop and mobile display ads as their primary media channel, as this provided the greatest inventory opportunity against the finite targeting we were deploying while still being able to deliver sales offers effectively. Online display also allowed them to test their methodology against other ongoing Auto purchase intent-based acquisition campaigns.
Through a partnership brokered by connected interactive, they sourced auto purchaser data from DealerTrack, an auto dealership sales platform used extensively in Canada.
They were able to use the platform’s data to identify the residential postal codes of both recent CR-V and competitive compact SUV purchasers across British Columbia, enabling them to build a monthly-updated database to use as the base of their audience targeting. They merged this with automotive intent data based on category search signals, and targeted audiences within the purchasers’ postal codes with offer-driven display ads.
Once they’d tested feasibility of the scale they could achieve using the merged auto purchaser and automotive intent data and found it was viable, the brand launched the neighbour-targeted campaign, using standalone auto intent acquisition campaigns as a control for comparison.
The campaign proved particularly successful in funnelling audiences showing consideration behaviour to the website and improving upon BC Honda Dealers’ online acquisition success rates. Compared to the control campaign, ads from the program delivered 2x higher click through rates to Honda.ca.
Once there, people spent 3.7x more time on site than benchmark when exploring 2024 CR-V features and using the site’s online tools to build and price trim options. But most importantly, site visitors from the audiences targeted were 2.9x more likely to complete an online Build and Price, a conversion goal that almost exactly correlates to dealership sales.
One way to increase ad effectiveness is to find audiences who are already predisposed to entering a purchase consideration mindset for your product. A highly effective trigger for consideration is peer influence and the idea that people like you are making a decision to take an action.
So the agency built a solution around a psychological phenomenon known as the “Frequency Illusion” as a way to find audiences who had already been influenced by new car purchases of
those around them.
The “Frequency Illusion” is a cognitive bias where you notice something more frequently after becoming aware of it. So when you notice your neighbour’s new car, your brain starts to create sparks of recognition everytime you see that car elsewhere. Your subconscious starts to believe the car is everywhere and that acquiring one is normalised, often leading you to consider buying a
new car yourself.
The strategy was to leverage people feeling like they see a new CR-V or other compact SUV everywhere due to the frequency illusion, and capitalise on it with targeted advertising. The results validated their insight that if you see a neighbour who lives on your block buy a new car, you’re much more likely to enter consideration for a new car yourself.
The BC Honda Dealers were able to capitalise on this phenomenon to help trigger audiences into consideration mode, draw them to the website and boost sales for the new CR-V.
First, they had to determine a data source that would open the door to finding audiences who might be in the right mindset. The agency needed to design a platform that could identify the residential blocks of new car purchasers and advertise offers for the CR-V to other people there. They chose online desktop and mobile display ads as their primary media channel, as this provided the greatest inventory opportunity against the finite targeting we were deploying while still being able to deliver sales offers effectively. Online display also allowed them to test their methodology against other ongoing Auto purchase intent-based acquisition campaigns.
Through a partnership brokered by connected interactive, they sourced auto purchaser data from DealerTrack, an auto dealership sales platform used extensively in Canada.
They were able to use the platform’s data to identify the residential postal codes of both recent CR-V and competitive compact SUV purchasers across British Columbia, enabling them to build a monthly-updated database to use as the base of their audience targeting. They merged this with automotive intent data based on category search signals, and targeted audiences within the purchasers’ postal codes with offer-driven display ads.
Once they’d tested feasibility of the scale they could achieve using the merged auto purchaser and automotive intent data and found it was viable, the brand launched the neighbour-targeted campaign, using standalone auto intent acquisition campaigns as a control for comparison.
The campaign proved particularly successful in funnelling audiences showing consideration behaviour to the website and improving upon BC Honda Dealers’ online acquisition success rates. Compared to the control campaign, ads from the program delivered 2x higher click through rates to Honda.ca.
Once there, people spent 3.7x more time on site than benchmark when exploring 2024 CR-V features and using the site’s online tools to build and price trim options. But most importantly, site visitors from the audiences targeted were 2.9x more likely to complete an online Build and Price, a conversion goal that almost exactly correlates to dealership sales.
Credits
Jungle Media:VP Media Director: Josh Tebbutt
Group Strategy Director: Andrew Grant
Media Planner/Buyer: Christina Bourhill