Instagram Influencer Takeover

Brief

The Brief.

Traditionally, Maserati has appealed to an older male suburban audience. With the imminent launch of one of their most important new models, The Levante, Maserati GB wanted to help raise awareness of the brand amongst a broader younger audience, as well as to help generate leads for the business ahead of the launch.

This new SUV was designed to be as at home in the country as in town, so our activity needed to tell visual stories about the brand that the target audience could identify with, without feeling ‘marketed at’.

Our strategy was to focus on the most visual of all social channels, Instagram. Many official and unofficial accounts already existed on Instagram pushing differing brand images and messaging. To stand out in the noise we needed to create an Instagram channel with a fresh approach. Something that our target audience hadn’t seen before.

We decided therefore to relinquish control of the channel and not post any of our own branded content, but to harness the power of relevant influencers to tell brand stories with a difference, reflecting their own personal interests. Stories which featured, rather than heroes the product, in a variety of situations.

In the early stages of the project, we focused on London centric takeovers to appeal to the city audiences, but as the campaign developed, we used the takeovers as a creative outlet to explore different elements of the brand and showcase a wide range of product qualities and thus hopefully appeal to a wide range of people.

The Response.

The activity took place predominantly on Instagram where our influencers and target audience are but was supported through the line using Twitter, PR and experiential.

Each ‘takeover’ saw a diverse range of influencers explore life with a Maserati. We worked with a different influencer every month, ranging from illustrators to international rugby players, chefs to photographers, some of whom had more than 200,000 followers.

Each curated a unique story on the channel that was published day-by-day and supported by Maserati and our influencers’ own channels.

We supported certain influencers with additional PR which allowed us to create wider awareness of our channel e.g. England rugby player Anthony Watson was interviewed by the Sunday Times Magazine about his Maserati.

The activity culminated in the launch of the Levante with a ‘Maserati Takeover’ event bringing together the 12 influencers, community, dealers and leads for an evening featuring a photography exhibition of our influencers’ Instagram posts, music supplied by Tallia Storm and food by Francesco Mazzei, both featured influencers. Maserati dealers attended to sign up leads for test drives.

The Results.

The results* have been impressive, both creatively and commercially, generating not just a new audience for Maserati, but also important leads for car sales.

Raise awareness
– Our Instagram channel has gained 13,512 new followers (66% aged 18-34), an increase of 381% from the previous year.
– Beyond reach, our audience is engaged with the content. During the last 12 months, Instagram received 62.5k likes and people clicked #MaseratiGB 26k times leading to an increased engagement rate of 3.7, up 332%

Help generate sales leads
– 290 potential customers attended the event and generated 45 test-drive leads – a fantastic result for a luxury car.

In addition to increasing brand awareness and engagement among a younger audience, we achieved real business outcomes by delivering a commercial return on investment with 45 test drives booked.

By bucking the trend for a luxury brand to be exclusive, the Maserati Takeovers has shown the value of being socially inclusive, resulting in a visually rich and exciting Instagram channel, different to any other automotive manufacturer on Instagram.

*(as of February 2018)