Driving local business by bringing Suzuki’s service promise to life.

Suzuki wanted to increase the number of customers using local dealers for servicing. When they asked We Are Acuity to create and develop a campaign to promote an offer – albeit a fantastic one – we recognised an opportunity for a more dynamic and sticky campaign which would make the local team the stars, and use their talents and personalities to promote Suzuki’s aftersales expertise for the long term.

Challenge

The audience we needed to reach was split into two. Firstly were those owners who had bought their car from a local Suzuki dealer and were therefore already part of that dealer’s CRM. The second group were owners who had purchased from a non-Suzuki dealer and were effectively off-grid and therefore harder to reach.

The offer was that 12 months’ breakdown cover and a £250 excess voucher were included with every service. Would this alone be enough to win these customers over? We believed there also needed to be a more emotive element to what we said.

There was a line in the original brief that stood out: ‘No-one will service your Suzuki better.’

We’re not just talking about the brand here; the real power lies in the fact that it’s people who live in your town who are doing the work - faces you might recognise. They’re experts you can ask a question and are the heart of every local dealership, delivering Suzuki’s service promise personally to every customer.

By focusing on these local experts, we believed we could not only highlight the quality of the service, but humanise the whole process, tapping into the re-emerging face-to-face essence of doing business locally.

We went back to Suzuki with a concept that used the original offer as support to the real benefit of a service at a local dealer – the unrivalled expertise of the local people who would be working on your car.

The strength of the Suzuki brand has always been its people, but up until now, it had always been the retail side of the business that had grabbed all the headlines. We felt it was time that the spotlight was shone on the hundreds of amazing technicians and aftersales staff that keep Suzuki drivers on the road.

The first stage was to identify the kind of people who filled the roles we would be highlighting. We used our knowledge of Suzuki aftersales to create three personas (complete with names, backgrounds, hobbies etc) to represent a Service Adviser, Senior Technician and Junior Technician – each of whom would represent one of Suzuki’s key service values: ‘Caring’, ‘Reliability’ and ‘Expertise’.

The campaign would need a photographic shoot, showing the Aftersales team in its natural environment. We took the decision to use models rather than real Suzuki team members for this first stage of the project, and used our personas to brief a model agency, whilst we carried out a recce of the dealership we would use for the shoot.

Once the day-long shoot was completed, we again used the personas to write some engaging, fun and snappy copy which used memorable ‘job titles’ to make each person’s skills instantly clear. We also created a visual style for the campaign that put the focus on the people, all shown as relaxed and happy to help. A ‘service promise’ stamp of approval was the finishing touch on each image, rendered almost as a watermark.

The result was a suite of ads, banners and emails that creatively achieved three key things:

	They told the story of the talent, passion and personality found in every Suzuki service team throughout the UK
	They engaged strongly with the local aftersales teams themselves, letting them know how they were truly valued by Suzuki
	They helped to humanise dealer comms, which most often feature cars and offers

The campaign is currently rolling out to all local dealers across the UK, and we have already heard that the fresh look and feel of the work is making a positive impact internally. The images from the shoot that haven’t already been used have been passed on to Suzuki to be used in additional campaigns via the local marketing hub, helping to ensure consistency moving forwards and that local assets continue to focus on the people who actually bring the Suzuki brand to life.

If you’d like to talk about your brand’s local marketing why not schedule a FREE 30-minute assessment today here? It will be well worth your time.

Or alternatively read more about Local Marketing on our blog page "Local Thinking': https://www.weareacuity.com/local-thinking-our-blog

	x3 Dealer CRM emails
	x3 Google Display Network (GDN) animating web banners
	Dynamically resizable Dealer website banners
	Social Media packs of x7 different assets including Facebook carousel
	x3 Half-page press advert templates
	Personalised Zone Manager Campaign Guides

Suzuki Aftersales

Driving local business by bringing Suzuki’s service promise to life.

Challenge

Insight

Solution

Results

More work.

Services.

Sectors.

Services.

Sectors.

Local Business & Marketing Case Studies | We Are Acuity. Driving local business by bringing ...

Suzuki Aftersales

Driving local business by bringing Suzuki’s service promise to life.

Challenge

Share

Insight

Solution

Results

More work.

Services.

Sectors.

Services.

Sectors.