In an automotive landscape where vehicles often compete on similar features, Mazda North America is steering towards a newly human-focused approach with its latest ad campaign, “Move and Be Moved.”
In collaboration with VML, at the heart of this campaign is the digital :60 “Memory Lane.” The brand aims to remind consumers that a drive is more than a journey from point A to B, elevating its brand beyond mere technical specifications and features. Mazda’s goal is to create more brand demand while reducing reliance on incentives.
The campaign is part of a broader media strategy that includes linear TV placements during popular sports programming and an influencer marketing campaign.
Here’s what iSpot’s Creative Assessment platform revealed on actual viewer response to the campaign.
The Details:
- Across the full gen pop audience, both the :30 “Choose to Be Moved” and digital :60 “Memory Lane” outperformed most non-lux auto advertising norms (past year), with the latter being a bona fide hit across the board:
- The message came through much more distinctively in the long-form digital ad, while the visuals were the most compelling to viewers of “Choose to Be Moved.”
- The “Memory Lane” messaging sparked stronger consideration (51% of gen pop viewers) vs the :30 “Choose to Be Moved” (46% Top 2 Box) and category norms (44%).
- The message came through much more distinctively in the long-form digital ad, while the visuals were the most compelling to viewers of “Choose to Be Moved.”
- “Memory Lane” resonated very positively with auto intenders both short- and long-term, driving the higher consumer intent expressed:
Among one-year non lux auto intenders:
- Within the one-year non lux auto intender audience, “Memory Lane” sparked an even higher—and impressive—consideration rate of 72%, with the creative ranking in the category’s 98th-99th percentile in overall response, breakthrough (Attention and Likeability), Relevance and Watchability (despite the :60 length):
- The spot connected quite successfully across age/gender with the Heartfelt messaging that sparked Nostalgia among viewers in a very Authentic manner. The new approach stood out as a Change in direction for the brand/category to intenders, ranking in the 96th percentile in this regard.
- Despite Mazda’s message-centric storytelling, eight in ten one-year intenders successfully connected Mazda to the content (unaided).
- The spot connected quite successfully across age/gender with the Heartfelt messaging that sparked Nostalgia among viewers in a very Authentic manner. The new approach stood out as a Change in direction for the brand/category to intenders, ranking in the 96th percentile in this regard.
- Comments from one-year intenders suggest that “Memory Lane” did more than simply connect to viewers in an interesting way by still focusing on vehicle features yet standing out vs other auto ads:
- Second-by-second trace reflects the effective storytelling with engagement rising and falling throughout the scenes; however, some stabilization occurred among male intenders in the last :15 of the spot.
One-year intenders on “Memory Lane” :60
“Wow! What a touching car ad. I loved it. Very relatable and heartwarming. I loved the storyline. I like how they showed lots of scenes of external pictures of Mazda SUV. I liked that they discussed features of the SUV, such as engine size and turbo charge.”
Female 50+
“The scene where the kids are sitting in the car acting like they’re driving is the best part and the whole ad is amazing.”
Male 21-35
“I loved the ad. I even liked the flashback to the father having a Mazda. I love how nostalgic the ad was and personal. I also love the car. It reminded me of my siblings and our memorable moments we have with each other.”
Female 21-35
“This is an entertaining and emotional ad. I loved the story of how the two brothers grew up with Mazda because of their father and have carried on his passion for the brand as adults.”
Male 21-35
“Really cool car commercial. First one I’ve ever seen like that. Keep up the work, it’s really good. I thought it was awesome. It’s inspiring too.”
Male 50+
“I like that the ad didn’t just show the car driving around. It was a family-friendly ad and had a nice back story.”
Female 36-49
“I really like the ad. Mazda isn’t a brand I’d normally consider, but I like the vehicle in this ad very much.”
Male 50+
“It was quite a touching commercial that also managed to showcase the positive attributes of the car.”
Female 36-49
- Mazda’s :30 “Choose to Be Moved” performed at norm among one-year intenders, and sparked intent within norm range as well, suggesting the :60 “Memory Lane” be considered for rotation into media plans to optimize the brand’s business outcomes:
- Mazda can also test a shorter cut of the :60 to determine if budgets could be optimized without sacrificing too much of the connections made and the consideration sparked by the full narrative.
- The emotional link of the joy of driving with the joy of living was a particularly good choice during an election season. In an American environment of heightened disagreement and separation, “Memory Lane” easily found a positive audience among intenders across political party:
- As such, this creative is suitable for broad programming with little risk.
- “Memory Lane” appealed more successfully across income levels while the :30 “Choose to Be Moved” seemed to land more positively as intender income rose, suggesting targeting opportunities ($75K+) for this spot if desired:
- “Memory Lane” ranks third among non-lux auto ads of the past year in overall response among one-year intenders, just behind a Dodge and Jeep spot:
- The purchase/visit intent sparked by the Mazda :60 also fell within range of these top performers.
Ineffective creative, even if delivered to the right audience, results in missed opportunity and performance shortfalls. Great creative delivered poorly also results in failed campaigns.
Schedule a demo to find out how your brand can partner with iSpot to quickly solve both challenges simultaneously, delivering high-performing creative while boosting the effectiveness of planning and in-market execution to achieve—and outperform—campaign objectives.
Creative Agency: VML