Sylvania Automotive —

Who the Heck Thinks About Headlight Bulbs?

SYLVANIA Automotive is enlightening drivers to think farther down the road. For years, SYLVANIA Automotive headlights have been the standard, enjoying a 92% market share in the US and an 80% market share in Canada. The only problem is, most of us aren’t concerned with how headlights work—until they don’t.

Client

Sylvania

Project

Think Farther Down the Road Integrated Campaign

Deliverables

Strategy, Media, Broadcast, Web Design/Development, Video Content, Social Channel Management, Social Content, Digital

The Challenge

Most people are unaware that headlights faded over time, or that they needed to replace two rather than just one for balanced downroad visibility at night. For that matter, most people don’t even realize that they can upgrade their stock or basic bulbs to one that’s clearer, whiter and brighter. Our challenge wasn’t to increase market share, it was to help people understand the importance of better headlight bulbs.

From prior research, we knew that headlight bulbs aren’t something people think about every day – if ever, and that trying to shift people’s habits was going to be a pretty tough task if it the work wasn’t engaging.

The Idea

Taking into consideration SYLVANIA’s leadership position, it made sense that we could make them the de-facto information authority for nighttime driving safety. With the goal of raising the category tide, we launched an entertaining, education-focused campaign we called the “SYLVANIA Proving Grounds.” A suite of broadcast ads that featured an off beat host helped kick off the effort, but since automotive headlights aren’t something you can keep droning on about, we gave broke our crash course in Headlights into entertaining little bite-sized videos that uniquely demonstrated the hazards drivers could be facing, and the benefits of upgrading.

Taking into consideration SYLVANIA’s leadership position, it made sense that we could make them the de-facto information authority for nighttime driving safety. With the goal of raising the category tide, we launched an entertaining, education-focused campaign we called the “SYLVANIA Proving Grounds.” A suite of broadcast ads that featured an off beat host helped kick off the effort, but since automotive headlights aren’t something you can keep droning on about, we gave broke our crash course in Headlights into entertaining little bite-sized videos that uniquely demonstrated the hazards drivers could be facing, and the benefits of upgrading.

The Idea

Social Media

At the heart of the campaign is a complete revamp of SYLVANIA’s social media presence with an emphasis on targeted social ads that made product education a major focus.Animated product videos and fine-tuned branded content helped drive engagement while increasing our reach.

Digital

As our campaign continued, social media was supported by high-impact digital display, broadcast, and radio, continuing to hammer home the message that SYLVANIA is helping drivers see more at night and “Think Farther Down the Road.”

As our campaign continued, social media was supported by high-impact digital display, broadcast, and radio, continuing to hammer home the message that SYLVANIA is helping drivers see more at night and “Think Farther Down the Road.”

Digital

Results

The campaign got off to an electric start with engagement rates popping up to 3x the industry standard, over 250 million views in the first couple of months, and click-through rates between 0.21% and 1.24%, depending on the objective. 

Results

The campaign got off to an electric start with engagement rates popping up to 3x the industry standard, over 250 million views in the first couple of months, and click-through rates between 0.21% and 1.24%, depending on the objective.