Upending the status quo with an unexpected ABM approach
Industrial powerhouse Chevron Lubricants needed to demonstrate how a compromise on heavy-duty engine oil now could mean bigger costs down the line. Together, we developed an ABM campaign targeting ~220 high-potential accounts that blended best practices with an unconventional approach designed to stand out and shift thinking.
Addressing a serious business challenge…with humor
To effectively reach time-starved decision makers at our target accounts, we needed to cut through the noise—and appeal to both the emotional and rational sides of the brain. Our creative concept was a bold departure from the usual territory for this industry, leveraging a series of humorous, out-of-context scenarios that commanded attention and got the audience thinking about something that isn’t normally on their daily agenda: their choice of engine oil.
Keywords:
Imagined by humans, generated by AI
To bring the idea to life, we tapped into generative AI, offering greater latitude to think and create outside of the box. Each creative execution drove home the key strategic insight: There are times you shouldn’t compromise; the heavy-duty engine oil you depend on to protect your fleet is one of them.
A curated journey of discovery, deployed at scale with new martech
To entice our audience to discover and engage with educational content, we helped activate targeted display ads and personalized landing pages by augmenting Chevron’s martech stack with short-term trials of Demandbase and HubSpot. Later touches featured video clips that further inspired prospects to engage, explore and learn. The pinnacle of our educational content was a video podcast featuring industry influencer Bryan Furnace and two Chevron SMEs, housed on a dedicated information hub complete with a HubSpot-powered chatbot.
Old-school tactic gets a digital facelift
A subset of core decision makers received a video direct mailer (DM) featuring a customized preview invitation from the influencer host. With real-time DM interactions tracked using 5G, prospect activity and intent signals were shared with Sales teams, enabling timely follow-up with tools that included personalized emails, phone calls and LinkedIn InMail.
Big strategic and creative swing, home run payoff
The campaign reached 96.8% of targeted accounts, with 80% showing engagement. It also proved the role strategic direct mail can play in demand marketing, with 59% of contacts viewing the video mailer. Importantly, Chevron discovered the value of ABM—how channel, content, creative and tech can work seamlessly together—and now have a solid foundation for future campaigns.
accounts reached
account engagement
video mailer engagement
This campaign showed us how different a strategically targeted ABM program is from a traditional media play. In addition to delivering on objectives, it provided learnings we can use in future campaigns, including optimizing martech and tracking to help our sales force capitalize on momentum and connect with engaged prospects.