CARVANA 2020 - 2021
CARVANA 2020 - 2021
Business challenge: Continue to aggressively grow and scale the business, as new entrants and established players moved into the 100% online space, all while weathering a global pandemic.
Marketing challenge: Drive the demand necessary to sustain growth while starting to position Carvana as the category leader.
Brand challenge: Evolve creative, messaging and tactics to help solidify our leadership position, using digital and social to build incremental brand equity.
Solution: Highlight the difference between Carvana and the traditional dealership model with a premium, entertainment-driven product campaign. Address new category entrants head-on from the position as the pioneer in online vehicle retail.
Results: 83% growth in unit sales from 2020 - 2021. Aided brand awareness grew 20% over the year with unaided awareness doubling in 14 months.
Moving into 2020, the success of 100% online car buying had become undeniable and the competition was growing. Carmax, the current used-car volume leader, was launching an omnichannel experience to challenge Carvana and had just completed a brand evolution, building strength behind their line, “The way it should be.” And Texas brand Vroom was moving aggressively in their brand building and product marketing tactics. They’d start to invest heavily in premier TV and live sports placements.
After 18-months of strong, product-focused messaging, we had seen significant growth in brand awareness and brand health metrics, and supported the business needs in driving demand. But as an emergent category lead, we felt it was important to take some “big swings” to further entrench our brand at the top.
Next Up, Carvana
The Next Up, Carvana campaign was developed as a campaign structure to evolve our product-focused content, applying an entertainment filter on the messaging to build brand equity and affinity. We understood that while our online competition was evolving, the greatest opportunity for growth was to continue stealing share from the dealership. ‘The Daves,’ our heroes in the campaign, allowed us to draw a comparison to the dealers, highlight how Carvana was a better way to buy, while at the same time not completely denigrating the dealership model as our competitor Vroom was doing.
Seeing our brand and category evolve, we believed we were at the point where it was important to build more scale and production value into our work. We identified Rob Corddry, a known comedic star, to anchor the six-spot campaign. The $3.5MM campaign cost was our largest production investment to date and we were bullish on the outcomes.
Two weeks prior to campaign launch, the country went into lockdown. The campaign was temporarily shelved as we jumped into business and brand solutions to keep the company afloat during those uncertain times.
The Pioneers of Online
Cavana weathered the storm of the COVID pandemic and emerged stronger than ever, as the acceleration in online shopping buoyed the business during the darkest times.
In the summer of 2020, Carvana was emerging as the new, used car category lead. The brand was now the second-largest retailer of used cars, with the largest market cap in the category, and the fastest-growing retailer (in any category) of all time. We also saw OEMs, dealerships and listing sites rushing to market with half-baked, “online” shopping solutions to capitalize on new consumer demand. We believed it was critical to defend our position as the status quo in online vehicle retail and it was important to present our case with the swagger and attitude of a brand who engineered and was leading the category forward.
Once again, we leaned into our strongest brand assets, this time paying special attention to the Carvana employees who help make the customer experience incredible.
The new spot was immediately successful, driving improvements in response rate and overall media efficiency. And while it was a retail-focused spot, we saw a significant lift in STC vehicle acquisitions which we attributed to the compelling, resonant message that we presented with the confidence of a leader. Consumers reacted really positively to this spot, many noting an appreciation for the diversity of the team that we featured.
We wrapped up 2020 with a new round of value prop spots. We highlighted Carvana’s commitment to pricing transparency with no hidden dealership fees. Developed a new STC spot to leverage the customer learning that the experience selling their car to Carvana feels too good to be true. And highlighted our brand value “your next customer may be your mom” in a customer-service focused spot for Mother’s Day 2021.
2021 also included the launch of our Indycar sponsorship with Jimmie Johnson that can be found here.
By Q1 2021, we saw an 83% lift in sales from the end of 2020 as well as substantial gains in brand awareness. Aided brand awareness grew a substantial 20% and unaided awareness grew by an astounding 100%, doubling in just 14 months.
