MICHELIN Malaysia
The Campaign
Action, suspense and a thrilling conclusion were all part of Michelin: Mission to Macau, the 2008 Michelin Dealers’ Convention. For three days, Michelin dealers from Malaysia assumed the role of a world renowned super spy tasked with rescuing a beautiful undercover agent held hostage by a sinister rival.
In just three days, Michelin managed to inspire its dealers to maintain the standards required for ambassadors of a premium brand. The brand also saw a huge increase in sales as it doubled its monthly average sales.
Campaign Background and Marketing Objectives
In 2007, premium tyre brand Michelin organized its first Dealers’ Convention for its Malaysian dealers. By featuring a unique yet relevant theme that delivered information of real value, the convention was a smashing success with dealers providing positive feedback and placing large orders for Michelin products.
Relationships between the brand and the dealers were at an all time high and sales were improving.
For 2008, Michelin Malaysia had three objectives for its Dealers’ Convention.
- It had to deliver an experience to top that of the previous year. As the leader in the performance tyre category, Michelin had to demonstrate its prowess of innovation. The brand could not afford to ease off and rest on its laurels.
- It had to continue inspiring its dealers to maintain the brand’s premium image on pricing, branding (proper attire) and customer service.
- Lastly, it needed to once again use the opportunity to push sales of its products.
Campaign Strategy
The target audience were Michelin dealers operating in Malaysia. Majority are Chinese males in their late thirties/early forties. As they are small business owners, they are known to be business-minded and place great importance in obtaining money.
Most dealers would stock competing tyre brands and hence would also be invited by them to attend other conventions/incentive trips. The conventional agenda for these trips would be ‘wine, women and song’ with little effort being made to create a meaningful platform to really engage with dealers.
Michelin was of a different opinion and decided to challenge this. Feedback from the previous years’ Dealers’ Convention showed that dealers were in fact appreciative of Michelin’s efforts to inject a real brand experience into the convention. It helped facilitate between understanding of the brand and created a bond of mutual respect.
Armed with this knowledge, Michelin knew that it was on the right path forged ahead to create more meaningful brand experiences for its dealers.
The brand vision for Michelin is to be more than just tyres. As such, Michelin wanted its dealers to be more than just tyre sellers. It wanted its dealers to be ambassadors for the brand and through them, provide compelling reasons to choose a more expensive tyre.
This is especially crucial in a category where most consumers have little or no knowledge about the products and rely heavily on dealer recommendations during purchase moments.
The key message that Michelin needed to drive home to its dealers was the value of innovation and need to remain premium.
Only by staying true to both principles could Michelin maintain its leadership in the performance tyre category.
Michelin determined that the best way to inspire the dealers to this would be to have them LIVE IT.
Campaign Concept
MICHELIN: Mission to Macau was conceptualized to give dealers a chance to literally step into a different world, one filled with excitement and suspense made famous by a series of hit movies!
For three days and two nights, dealers would assume the role of a world renowned secret agent to face off against an evil villain, learn skills to overcome challenges and in the end, save a damsel in distress!
Dealers became agents.
The agenda became the plot.
The venue became the set.
And Michelin became more than just a manufacturer of tyres.
In line with the concept, every single piece of communication material from invites to décor items carried a consistence look that helped create a world of excitement and intrigue.
The challenges themselves were carefully designed plot devices that not only reinforced Michelin’s key messages but also help drive the story further.
By creating such a unique brand story Michelin was able to retain interest throughout the convention and provide a unique experience for the dealers.
Campaign Execution
As in any good spy movie, the story started with dealers receiving a ‘Top Secret’ envelope. The envelope contained a CD featuring a briefing from ‘M’ aka Michelin, travel documents and other useful items.
The briefing from M outlined the ‘plot’ of the dealers’ convention: The sinister Dr No No had kidnapped the lovely Miss Money Money and was holding her hostage in Macau.
Dealers were asked to fly to Macau, the Monte Carlo of the east to take part in the Michelin Dealers’ Convention and learn the skills required to save her.
This cunningly crafted plot was of course a metaphor for a simple message: Work with Michelin to maintain quality and make lots of money!
Arriving in their hotel in Macau, the dealers were greeted by the Michelin brand team all dressed as secret agents. The brand team then unveiled the dastardly device holding Miss Money Money captive…a giant roulette wheel!
Over the next three days. The dealers would have to unlock the roulette wheel by taking part in three challenges. Each challenge solved would unlock a third of the roulette wheel.
These challenges were designed to bring out the key messages that Michelin Malaysia wanted to communicate. The clues to solving the challenges would come from the various presentations delivered by the Michelin Brand Team during the convention.
The challenges were:
The Right Michelin Man – Dealers had to unscramble a picture of the Michelin Man into its correct layout. This challenge was used to reinforce the need for a consistent brand look and feel when in for dealer attire and other brand material.
From Dealers to Leaders – Dealers were challenged to transform a set of giant scrabble tiles spelling DEALERS into a secret password ie LEADERS. The intention of this challenge was to inspire them to become true professionals with the skills and knowledge to help consumers.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T – Dealers had to correctly identified key words starting with R – E – S – P – E – C –
T. Each letter related to one of seven components is service quality checklist that dealers had to maintain in order to demonstrate to consumers the value of paying more for a Michelin tyre.
When the final challenge was solved during the convention’s gala dinner, the roulette wheel was unlocked and Miss Money Money, (who was in fact a famous local singer) was released. She then proceeded to show her gratitude by entertaining the dealers with a series of hit songs.
Award certificates were then presented to the dealers acknowledging their participation in the convention.
With their mission complete, the dealers returned to Malaysia taking with them newfound skills and learnings. The following day, they found a specially designed Michelin briefcase waiting for them at their outlets. Containing a framed photo of the dealer taken at the convention, it also carried a thank you note from Michelin Malaysia congratulating them on a job well done and reminding them that although the Mission to Macau was over, their role as Michelin ambassadors should continue.
Campaign results and measurement
The convention was a huge success and the results from Michelin Malaysia’s post event survey showed it:
- 98% of dealers ‘Agreed & Strongly Agreed’ that the conference was well presented and useful
- 96% of dealers ‘Agreed & Strongly Agreed’ that the overall convention experience was very enjoyable and memorable
- 96% of dealers ‘Agreed & Strongly Agreed’ that they are looking forward to the next MICHELIN Dealers Convention
The convention also helped Michelin double its monthly sales in just three days.
Results from Michelin Dealers Convention 2008 Post Event Survey
In addition, results from a year end mystery shopper programme clearly showed that the vast majority of Michelin dealers acted on key messages delivered during the convention and maintained stable, consistent pricing. Branding objectives were also achieved with 94% of dealers wearing proper Michelin attire. Lastly by instilling a customer first mentality, dealers
received a boost to their revenue when 98% of customers also purchased additional services such as wheel alignment and balancing from them.
Results from Michelin Mystery Shopper Programme Dec 2008
This campaign fueled another successful year for Michelin Malaysia in 2008 with a very significant increase in sales that amounted to double that of 2007!
Results from Michelin End Year Report 2008