How Renault puts the Va Va Voom in its advertising

Campaign Focus – Publicis Modem – ’Kings and Queens of Va Va Voom’ with Simon McCarthy, Planning Director.

What was your brief?

Publicis Modem was briefed to extend the ’What is Va Va Voom?’ thought into digital space. This was to harness and build on the core TV campaign assets, particularly the nature of which celebrities exhibit Va Va Voom. The overall aim was to engage with and drive fans of Renault on Facebook asking ’What’s Va Va Voom?’.

Describe the campaign?

Digital agency Publicis Modem launched a competition on Renault UK Facebook’s page in February as part of the car manufacturer’s integrated campaign for the new Clio, ’Kings and Queens of Va Va Voom.’

In its first month the competition received over 7000 entries on the social network, while the accompanying video content on YouTube generated over 770,000 views. Earlier this month the agency launched Renault’s largest Facebook giveaway to date, offering participants a chance to meet r’n’b star Rihanna.

What has been key to the success of the Facebook campaign?

Understanding how consumers engage with ideas like “What is Va Va Voom?” and enabling a light hearted discussion to take place based around a subject that has broad appeal – the celebrities who may be said to have it. Also the competition mechanic was simple and fun to encourage widespread participation.

How have you approached revitalising a campaign in the digital space?

Simply being associated a term does not mean that this term has retained its relevance or original meaning. Therefore being able to get under the skin of more qualitative measures will help define such metrics as critical. With Va Va Voom, although the sentiment was still relevant, there was a risk that the word had stopped registering with consumers. So what was needed was to go back to the root of what Va Va Voom was all about and concentrate on reinvesting the brand with this meaning.

What have been the challenges of developing an element of an integrated campaign?

There needed to be an alignment by all parties involved from product development, communications agencies, retail outlets and dealers etc, to get people to reengage with the chic, sexy, urban and modern concept.

If the campaign was not followed right through every touch-point then it would have just been more about window dressing then about the brand and this would soon be discovered by consumers. This point is clearly true of all branding (or should be) but it’s even more important when the aim is to reconnect with consumers with an equity or to alter consumers perceptions so that the brand takes son a different role in their lives.

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