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Resource Type: Case Study

Audience Insights case study: Behavioral segmentation improves acquisition efforts

Audience Insights case study: Behavioral segmentation improves acquisition efforts

A Marketbridge client in the identity protection space was struggling to drive meaningful growth. The category was experiencing increased competition with lower-cost products entering the market, stealing share from incumbents. Despite increased marketing investment, our client’s revenue was relatively flat. The new customer segment was showing some growth, but other business metrics weren’t improving. Here’s how Marketbridge helped the client understand whether recent brand efforts were driving the new customer segment, and how to optimize investment to drive additional growth and scale.

Seeking insights to optimize opportunities

The objectives of the engagement were two-fold:

Understand new customers

Analyze the new customer segment to understand drivers of growth and examine how the segment has changed over time to provide insights into how the client can enhance targeting in the future.

  • Behaviors and demographics
  • Product mix
  • Sales over time

Model brand responsiveness

Use media mix modeling (MMM) to understand how the new customer segment responds to brand efforts and identify optimization opportunities for the campaign.

  • Channels that perform best with new customer segment
  • Optimization opportunities for brand campaigns
  • Cost per acquisition ranges

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Segment muddiness illuminate the root issue

During analysis, we uncovered that the new customer segment was actually two distinct segments: customers who were brand new and returning customers who upgraded their product. Combining these two segments camouflaged that the brand-new customer segment was shrinking. We dug into the other customer segments and found similar issues and inconsistent logic that was hampering audience targeting.

Creating new
behavioral segments

We built new behavioral segments that leveraged internal client data for actionable audience targeting that goes beyond finance-led segmentation.

Created data-driven behavioral segments that are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive (MECE)

Deployed new segmentation in the marketing database for real-time audience targeting and conversion labeling

Enabled reporting on these segments over time to ensure shifts in audience mix support client’s strategic goals

How brand-new customers
respond to brand efforts

We used MMM to understand which channels drove the brand-new customer segment to purchase and how to optimize for increased acquisition.

Provided clear insights on which channels and platforms drove the largest sales impact

Found that past brand campaigns did drive increases in brand-new customers, which was masked by previously combined segmentation

Created true cost per acquisition benchmarks for this brand-new customer segment

Improved targeting and optimized investment

Lookalike audiences using the former “new customer” segment had limited success due to inexact targeting and muddied segmentation. Leveraging the “brand-new” customer segmentation resulted in better signal and improved conversion rates, decreasing acquisition costs. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, brand-new customers were attracted by awareness efforts, while more mid-funnel activities and affiliates drove product switching among current customers. This data led to executive approval to move budget up-funnel. Our client also moved current customers into upsell campaigns and suppressed them from certain acquisition efforts to improve ROI across both initiatives.

Marketing Effectiveness case study: Building a simple, actionable, measurable brand model

Marketing Effectiveness case study: Building a simple, actionable, measurable brand model

A premium personal care brand wanted to quantify brand strength to review which marketing efforts and strategic initiatives moved the needle, and to reveal the relationship between brand strength and sales. The client was faced with myriad data that provided competing signals: awareness was trending up while share of voice was dropping, product reviews had never been better while new customer acquisition was trending downwards. These mixed messages made it difficult to evaluate the relationship between a recent brand campaign and the brand itself, let alone the linkage to revenue.

Stitching together a complete brand picture

To better understand the relationship between company efforts and brand strength, and to stitch together a picture of the indirect impact that “brand” has on eventual sales, we set out to coalesce the company’s variety of brand data sources into a set of simple, actionable and clear brand metrics. With a time-series view of these metrics, we then reviewed the impact and temporal lag of marketing and PR efforts.

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Marketbridge Brand Measurement Framework

Building a unified brand metric(s)

We gathered all data that might be either an indicator or a driver of brand strength by meeting with data owners and analysts across the company. After normalizing the data and aligning time granularity (daily vs. monthly, etc.), we used Structural Equation Modeling, paired with our deep understanding of the business to test hypotheses and generate a model of the unobserved factors that comprise the client’s holistic brand. After a few iterations and brainstorming sessions, we landed on a model with three factors, turning over a dozen sources into a simple three-part view:

Awareness

Are potential customers in the company’s target demographic aware of (a) the premium personal care category and (b) the brand itself?

Affinity

Do those customers who have experienced the brand, whether as a buyer or a simple observer, view the brand and its products favorably?

Salience

When potential customers are talking about the premium personal care industry, are they talking about our client’s brand or their competitors?

Reviewing brand factor history and tying it to sales trend

Armed with the three-factor brand model, we plotted each over multiple years and pointed to specific moments in company history, noting the effect on each factor. PR struggles, competitor investments and marketing campaigns all had predictable impacts on Awareness, Affinity and Salience, though the impacts were far from uniform:

The company was in a growing category with lots of social “buzz.” As an incumbent, increases in category awareness translated into brand awareness, so we saw an ever-increasing Awareness factor.

Our Affinity factor moved up and down in line with PR moments (good and bad) and paid media spend. It was clear that a recent campaign had helped Affinity to rebound.

The client’s Achilles heel was the Salience factor. Metrics like share of voice and search volume all pointed towards competitors continuing to build audience momentum at the company’s expense.

Gearing up for a sales turnaround

Critically, the company’s Salience factor appeared closely intertwined with the company’s sales trend, after controlling for seasonality and promotions. In a fast-changing industry like premium personal care, our brand factor model helped to reveal that staying top of mind translates directly into financial success for our client, but a recovery was necessary. Armed with the learning that a recovery in Salience would most likely result in a sales turnaround, the company shifted much of its planned Awareness media budget into deeper partnerships with targeted influencers and tastemakers to stay top of mind and best in buzz.

Marketing Effectiveness case study: Optimizing member outreach campaigns improves health outcomes

Marketing Effectiveness case study: Optimizing member outreach campaigns improves health outcomes

Despite investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing outreach campaigns, measuring effectiveness was a challenge for this Fortune 50 payer. See how Marketbridge leveraged marketing analytics to empower the payer to enhance outreach, increase preventive screenings and optimize marketing spend.

Creating healthier campaigns
to drive healthier outcomes

Quality member care is a crucial part of the long-term success of healthcare payers. Better member health outcomes not only mean healthier members but also lower medical costs, less member disenrollment and improved Medicare Advantage star ratings and bonus payments from the federal government. A Fortune 50 healthcare payer sought to improve member health outcomes by engaging members with specific gaps in care.

The payer invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in outreach campaigns that asked targeted members to complete certain preventive screenings. The hypothesis was that these marketing-funded campaigns would make a meaningful difference in closing member gaps in care. However, the ability to measure the effectiveness of these marketing campaigns was a challenge for the healthcare payer.

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Unraveling
the challenge

The campaigns consisted of multiple touchpoints across offline (direct mail, phone calls) and online (digital media) channels, which made determining which tactics were contributing to preventive screenings difficult. In addition, the long-tail response curves of these campaigns, coupled with the time it takes to receive claims data, meant having to wait months to capture and analyze results. This hindered the payer’s ability to make optimizations in a timely manner.

Measurement challenge accepted

Our team began by identifying the three key objectives that would enable the marketing team to measure and optimize the marketing-funded campaigns.

Determine campaign effectiveness

Are certain marketing campaigns effective in persuading members to take a breast cancer screening, colorectal cancer screening or address diabetes maintenance (A1-C and retinopathy)?

Drive continuous improvement

How can we infuse timely data-driven learnings into our ongoing marketing cycles so we can continuously test and learn?

Understand audience-level response

Which segments are responding to which marketing tactics, and how do we capitalize on each using data?

Implementing a two-part
measurement approach

MTA

A multi-touch attribution (MTA) model assigns fractional credit to each touchpoint in gap closure campaigns, revealing each channel’s influence on preventive screenings. However, the long maturation period for response data (member claims) delays insights until after the next campaign cycle, limiting timely optimizations. To address this, Marketbridge proposed a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) alongside the MTA model.

RCT

The RCT proved effective, showing that three out of four campaigns successfully drove incremental gap closures. This allowed the Marketing team to reallocate funds from the ineffective campaign to successful ones, enabling timely adjustments. The MTA model’s long-term results validated the RCT findings, confirming most campaigns were effective.

Two is better than one

The RCT analysis helped this Fortune 50 payer prove that all but one of the four campaigns in-market were successful in driving an incremental lift in gap closures. These results allowed the Marketing team to quickly reallocate funds away from one campaign that was not working and toward the other three campaigns that were working. This bought the Marketing team time to “retool” the unsuccessful campaign for testing in a future campaign cycle—an opportunity that would have otherwise been lost without using the RCT approach. As for the MTA model, the overall long-term results validated the findings of the RCT analysis and proved that most of the marketing campaigns were working.

We looked at member segments, too

We applied a propensity model to understand marketing impact by member segments. It showed that members with a higher likelihood of closing care gaps had lower cost-per-closure rates. As a result, the marketing team tested sending more notices to high-likelihood members and fewer to low-likelihood members, aiming for cost-effective strategies. 

Optimized campaigns.
Healthier members.

Improved member outcomes:

Marketing care gap campaigns were successful in driving members to get preventive screenings, improving their health outcomes.

Optimized marketing spend:

Members with a higher likelihood of closing a care gap had lower cost-per-incremental-closure. This gave Marketing more room to invest in touchpoints to this segment.

Timely test-and-learn cycles:

The Marketing team was able to work around long-tail response curves to enable year-round testing and learning, which is critical in the pursuit of health outcomes.

GTM Consulting case study: New go-to-market sales strategy improves sales efficiency by 42%

GTM Consulting case study: New go-to-market sales strategy improves sales efficiency by 42%

Despite tremendous growth in the previous year, this SaaS company had seen large variations in the performance of their sales representatives with unfair territory coverage. Strong product-led growth left many loyal customer opportunities dormant. Here’s how Marketbridge helped design a more efficient go-to-market strategy that aligned sales motions with revenue potential and customer value for growth.

Scrutinize the strategy
to enable growth

The client’s objective was to gain a top-to-bottom analysis of their current sales strategy and highlight key areas of focus. This analysis would then be used to provide a framework to accelerate growth and scale effectively. Through interviews with key stakeholders, it was observed that there was a lack of knowledge on how to market and communicate to customers beyond the end user. Additionally, there was a disconnect between the different players throughout the sales process, along with the sentiment that sales-led accounts could have been performing well above their current ARR. 

Key gaps were also observed in both current segmentation and coverage. A bifurcated segmentation model blurred the lines for account coverage, with 43% of accounts misaligned due to poor segmentation, and inconsistent role definitions created a lack of connection to revenue objectives and the sales cycle. With this information, our goal was to design and implement a revised go-to-market sales strategy, aligning revenue potential, customer value and sales motions to enable future growth.

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A multi-pronged approach to optimization

Baseline assessment and strategy alignment

Marketbridge performed a baseline assessment of the current strategy and coverage structure. Customer segmentation, role definitions, territories, and marketing strategy were then analyzed. Significant gaps were found that needed to be addressed within each area of focus. Marketbridge identified three distinct sales plays that the client could utilize to enable future growth opportunities.

Segmentation, role definition and coverage design

Using the baseline analysis, Marketbridge applied a data-driven approach to model opportunity at the account level, finding that ~75% of all ARR and opportunity fell within the top two deciles. This calculated information was then used to suggest alternative segmentations that could be aligned across roles and throughout the sales process. 

The new design also included updated role definitions, allowing for more specialization and deeper knowledge of the requirements. Marketbridge also recommended a reallocation of current accounts and a change in coverage design —considering time zones when allocating both existing and new accounts to ensure that resources could engage with clients consistently and influence future hiring strategy.

Implementation of territory models, compensation and coverage design

These recommendations were translated into a driver-based financial model for the new fiscal year. The model incorporated channel economics to ensure a profitable and highly scalable approach to growth. It created new dynamic territories and more evenly allocated accounts across the Sales team. With this, the client could enable dynamic territories and optimize resource allocation over time. In addition, new sales compensation plans were outlined to pay for performance and align incentives with role requirements. Roles were then allocated across the sales cycle in a detailed coverage map that clearly defined each person’s role through each phase.

Primed for future growth

42% improvement in sales efficiency and target attainment

With the new account allocation, opportunity was evenly distributed across sales staff. This decreased expense to new bookings by 42% and allowed all sales staff to reach target ARR goals. Detailed roll definitions also improved connectivity and collaboration throughout the sales process.

Greater alignment of Sales 
and Marketing functions

Improved coverage structure helped align future sales plays and marketing efforts. This allowed both teams to communicate a consistent value proposition to both existing and potential customers. Consistent segmentation also reduced the number of misaligned accounts to 0, allowing for more collaboration across all departments and roles.

Scalable go-to-market strategy 
for ARR growth

Our implementation has influenced a net ARR increase of 130%. New dynamic territories created by the model enabled the client to distribute new accounts across the Sales team effectively as their customer base grew. This more efficient allocation of resources ensures consistent customer engagement and can adapt, continuing to promote revenue growth. 

Raymarine case study: A new life on a hundred-year story

Raymarine case study: A new life on a hundred-year story

Since 1923, Raymarine has been a trusted, leading name in the marine electronics industry. But, due to stiff competition and product-forward advertising, their brand story was getting lost in a sea of sameness for their boaters and anglers in the United States. The writing was on the wall: They had to do something different. And that’s exactly what we did.

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Leave doubt in your wake

When it comes to marine equipment, there is no room for error and doubt. Boaters and anglers need reliable products they can count on. So, we tapped into that emotional need in order to give Raymarine a new, refined voice that exudes confidence, rugged reliability and trust. We combined influencer partnerships, lifestyle branding and creative storytelling to deliver a brand refresh and 360 campaign that spoke directly to the hearts of those who dare the deep.

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Coast Guard stamp of approval

There’s saying your product is trustworthy, and then there’s actually backing it up. The fact that the U.S. Coast Guard was already relying on Raymarine only reinforced our messaging, and having them as brand ambassadors spoke volumes to our audience.

Not just a new brand.
A campaign with bite to launch it.

From the logo to becoming a lifestyle brand, we made a significant shift, found a compelling new storyline and reinvigorated the brand to be forward-thinking yet in tune with the lifestyle of boaters and anglers. We helped support it on the website, as well as through an integrated digital and social media plan to break through the noise.

Putting the pros at the helm of the story

We also partnered with a wide network of pro ambassadors and influencers to capture their own content and show just how well Raymarine’s equipment holds up, even in the toughest waters.

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HealthEdge case study: A rebrand with an edge

A HealthEdge case study: A rebrand with an edge

Digital solutions provider HealthEdge has a mission to help health plans transform from traditional organizations limited by siloed, manual solutions into transparent, modern digital payers. But as HealthEdge grew, that narrative was becoming blurred. They needed a new way to unify and communicate that message to their customers and prospects—visually and conceptually, from corner to corner of their brand.
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A new look, launch and collateral

We provided a visual identity refresh, unified messaging and a brand story that elevates their platform. Anchored by the tagline “Become a digital payer,” we paired messaging around the idea of enabling a connective transformation with a strong, distinctly modern and sophisticated visual language.

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A sharper identity to match their vision

The new logo leverages an exponent that we refer to as “The Edge.” It’s suggestive of their evolving line of products and services and their mission to always push the healthcare industry forward. As we’ve been expanding their story and visuals, the one constant is HealthEdge’s desire to lead an industry that has been desperate for a voice. Our approach complements that notion in a way that’s visually impactful without being overpowering.

FIS case study: Hyper-targeted 1: Few campaign creates “More Than” a feeling

FIS case study:
Hyper-targeted 1:Few campaign creates “More Than” a feeling

With the acquisition of payment processing company Worldpay, FinTech leader FIS had more to offer its customers than ever before. Problem was, the new Worldpay client base didn’t know about all the additional solutions FIS could bring to the table. Here’s how Marketbridge and FIS launched a highly targeted 1:Few ABM campaign that built awareness and drove action with key accounts.

A mission to change perceptions

For B2B retailers across the United States and around the world, 2020 was anything but business as usual. Facing significant and increasing complexity in achieving their goals—under the shadow of a global pandemic, no less—even some of the largest merchants have had to pivot, adapt and reinvent to stay in the game.

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The plan takes shape

Working with Marketbridge, FIS launched a highly targeted 1:Few ABM campaign aimed at raising awareness, changing perceptions and building relationships with senior decision makers at 13 existing top accounts, including many of the biggest companies in the U.S. retail sector. We started by assessing the state of existing company/contact data across key titles and target audiences and mapped value propositions for each of our 13 accounts. Data gaps were identified and filled. Personas added depth and a human lens. 

Account-customized creative connects and inspires

The lead creative was simple, smart and salient—and highly personalized by account. Through catchy, alliterative headlines, account-customized illustrations and brand colors that hailed the account without specifically naming it (at least at first!), the concept spoke to the power of reinvention for accelerated business success.

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Early engagement sends strong signals

After only a few months in-market, this hyper-targeted campaign has delivered over 3.5M impressions and generated 10,000+ clicks—all from key decision makers at top-priority accounts. What’s more, all ad units are outperforming industry benchmarks, a testament to the power of such unique account-based personalization.

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impressions served

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“This campaign has set the bar high for future FIS ABM 1:Few programs. 
The “More Than” concept provided a strong creative foundation to engage accounts 
in a highly personalized and scalable way. And that’s what best-in-breed ABM is all about.”

— Christina Handy
| VP, Account-Based Marketing, FIS

Bitrise case study: Buckle up for a really good campaign story

Bitrise case study: Buckle up for a really good campaign story

Following a recent round of Series C funding, Bitrise—the world’s first and only Mobile DevOps company—needed to build mindshare and market share…and fast. To do it, they needed to convince tech leaders and their development teams at big financial institutions that when it comes to creating extraordinary app experiences, the best things in life aren’t free.

Making the case for mobile-first

Mobile has made huge leaps forward in the past couple of years. To stay relevant and competitive, organizations that jockey for consumer attention and membership, like banks and insurance firms, have to go all-in on apps. At the same time, developing for mobile has become infinitely more complex, and legacy approaches simply can’t cut it in a mobile-first world. Free, open-source platforms—the kind traditional web experiences are built on—were never made for mobile. And it shows, manifesting on the back end as sluggish builds, bottlenecks and a ton of manual (read: risk-laden) work.

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We needed to shift
the mental model

Bitrise had a strong product offering and an exciting brand. But to drive awareness and consideration, we needed to shift the mental model and convince tech leaders that investing in a Mobile DevOps platform and retooling their development protocols is better than having a mobile-first competitor snatch your customer base.

Selecting and segmenting for campaign success

Leveraging the predictive intelligence capabilities of ABM platform 6sense, Bitrise identified ~200 accounts in the financial services space that fit their ICP and showed a strong likelihood to purchase a solution like theirs. Marketbridge validated the account selection and acquired contacts to fill coverage gaps across the buying committee through sales intelligence platform SalesIntel. We segmented the audience into two groups—Practitioners (the DevOps doers) and Tech Leaders (the budget-holders), creating unique messaging and mapping content that would resonate with each audience’s motivations, challenges and goals.

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Creative unites agility and security (Yes, really!)

The Bitrise brand is playful, confident and attention-getting. To amplify it for ABM, we needed to inject relevance for a finance audience whose main objective is maximizing app experience while minimizing risk. “Buckle up with Bitrise” became our rally cry, suggesting a sense of security but also an impending takeoff.

Our creative big idea focused on the elements of Bitrise’s platform that resonated strongest with our financial audience: the increased speed of development it offers teams and the comprehensive security features built into the platform.

The GTM play gets personal(ized)

The program kicked off with a “Surround & Nurture” play designed to capture attention and raise awareness. Channels and tactics included account-targeted media (display, native and social) and marketing-led emails that Marketbridge helped implement and deploy across their martech tools and platforms.

The most highly engaged accounts coming out of the “Surround & Nurture” play were funneled to a more highly personalized “Engage & Connect” outbound play focused on generating interest and engagement. Following outbound tactics, contact engagement was evaluated in Marketo using 6sense data and routed to Sales to begin an Outreach email sequence—which was automated on behalf of Sales.

The head-snap moment: account-personalized benchmark experience

Downstream in the “Engage & Connect” play, we directed contacts to a customized digital experience built and hosted in Marketo. Visually, the page was personalized with the account’s logo and name. But that wasn’t the exciting bit. Drawing on data from competitive intelligence platform Apptopia, we benchmarked the account’s mobile app performance against competitors across three key predictors of app store success. For some, the benchmark results were validating; for most, they were a wake-up call.

Buckle up for big results

The program saw wide reach and deep engagement across targeted accounts, and we added hundreds of new contacts into Bitrise’s marketable database for future campaigns. Additionally, we drove impact in buyer journey progression. Using 6sense to benchmark and track pre- and post-campaign buying journey stage movement, we pushed a third of accounts forward 1+ buying stage and grew accounts in Decision and Purchase by 44%. The campaign has gained traction in B2B awards circles as well. “Buckle up with Bitrise” was a finalist in the 2023 B2B Marketing Elevation Awards for Best Account-Based Marketing Program.

The team attributes campaign success to two key factors:

A highly automated campaign

That leveraged a strategic martech stack to deploy and coordinate the cross-channel experience at scale, reducing manual monitoring and management.

Meaningful use of personalization

Across the creative touchpoints, which helped the work stand out and sink in.

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Growth in decision
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engagement

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New contacts added to database

“The level of personalization and automation [Marketbridge] brought to 
this campaign made all the difference. It up-leveled our execution to get 
our message in front of the right eyeballs.”

– Marketing leader | Bitrise

Graebel case study: An interactive DEI journey inspires next-level outcomes

Graebel case study: An interactive DEI journey inspires next-level outcomes

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) has become an important part of many corporate agendas. Graebel knew that its experts could provide strategic recommendations and support to clients wherever they are on their DEI journey. But first, mobility leaders would need to recognize that they could be a catalyst for transformative DEI in their organizations.

Connecting the dots between global mobility and DEI

Prior to launching Graebel® DEI Consulting Services, a first-to-market solution in this space, Graebel, a leading global relocation management company (RMC), set out to educate key audiences about the potential role of the mobility team in building diversity, equity and inclusion. An interactive digital experience called the “Next-Level DEI Journey” became a key tool to build Graebel’s subject authority and inspire a new league of DEI change makers.

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Crystalizing a strong POV

To create this asset, we started with category and competitive research, as well as interviews with subject matter experts in both mobility and DEI. Observations and insights were synthesized into a point of view report, which led to a Unique Buying Proposition® (UBP) and a set of key messages. We then crafted a tight narrative that would anchor the interactive journey and all supporting marketing materials. Boiled down to its simplest form, the beats of the DEI narrative were:

1. DEI is the right thing to do—from a cultural and business standpoint.

2. Mobility professionals are uniquely suited to unlock the potential of DEI. 

3. Graebel can help you take DEI from baseline activities to something transformative.

A next-level digital experience takes shape

Built on the interactive content platform Ceros, the experience begins by inviting users to jump into a path—Diversity, Equity or Inclusion. The user is then oriented to the journey, a spectrum of maturity in the context of global mobility.

Users explore the three stages of the journey, at each step unpacking what it means from the vantage point of the mobile employee, the mobility team and the organization. Like any great digital experience, it’s most interesting when you try it for yourself.

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Persuasion through resonance and relevance

The strategic use of motion, color, iconography and navigational cues guide the user seamlessly through the journey paths while allowing them to pop in and out fluidly. We built persuasion into the experience in multiple ways: 

Quotations in the voice of the employee establish empathy.

Statistics add evidence and credibility to fuel cross-functional buy-in.

Actionable steps make progress feel within reach.

“What I love most about the DEI experience that we created together is its utility. Our sales teams use it in relationship-building conversations. Our client teams use it to gauge readiness and build roadmaps. And it gives prospective clients another great reason to consider Graebel.” 

– Tasha Johnson, VP Global Marketing | Graebel

Chevron case study: Influencer video series opens minds and inspires decision makers

Chevron case study: Influencer video series opens minds and inspires decision makers

When your entire operation relies on the performance of a single piece of equipment, protecting it shouldn’t be an afterthought or an area to pinch pennies. But when maintenance professionals look at only the input cost of engine oil, they end up doing just that. Chevron Lubricants needed to change that mindset and demonstrate how a compromise on engine oil now could mean bigger costs down the line. 

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A strategically formulated approach

Nationwide focus groups with target buyers validated by a quantitative survey revealed a skeptical misconception and key insight: maintenance professionals believe “oil is just oil” and that all options are basically the same. With this perspective, why would anyone pay more for one brand over another? We needed to help these buyers realize that their choice was impacting their bottom line well beyond the purchase price and take a social-first approach to show them how the right oil could not only help them overcome obstacles but provide a competitive advantage.

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Gather round
the expert table

Since we were dealing with some seriously technical information, we needed an approach that would pique interest and educate the audience. A roundtable discussion format set the stage for natural, organic conversations with two senior engineers from Chevron Lubricants. 

But in order for the content to really hit home, it had to come from someone they could relate to and trust. So, we tapped industry influencer Bryan Furnace, founder of the YouTube channel Diesel & Iron and host of the Equipment World YouTube show The Dirt. With his experience as a heavy equipment operator and established social presence (over 8.4 million YouTube views), Bryan was the ideal personality to interpret technical explanations through the lens of an end user and ask the tough questions that would elicit the clarity and understanding this audience demands.

The power of proof

To uncover the truth behind oil formulations and how they keep engines protected, we went straight to the source at Chevron Lubricant’s Richmond Technology Center in Richmond, California. We got exclusive access to the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, for a behind-the-scenes look at how oils are torture tested to prove their ability to protect in the most extreme conditions. This gave us all the proof we’d need to tell the story.

Find the
full series of videos here

Mission accomplished

The primary objective of this campaign was to get operators thinking about their choice of engine oil as a strategic business decision and to move them to engage with educational assets. The roundtable conversational video series garnered 435K views and 4M impressions at one-third the cost of the CPM benchmark. The social content resonated extremely well with our target audiences and has consistently been Chevron Lubricant’s top-performing content since launch.

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“We knew the information we had to share was complex. 
So, we took an experienced industry influencer and sat him down with our experts to 
unpack the stories in a way that our audience could relate to and clearly understand.”

— Walt M. Collier

| Americas Brand Manager for Delo engine oils and ancillary products

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