Ford & Greenhouse Group: Improved Brand Performance using Dynamic Video

Customizing Ads Based on Car Model Variations

Buying cars is a complex process for customers and advertisers alike. There are numerous different models that are suited to different people based on personal preference, budget, family situation and many other factors. Furthermore, each model comes with a bewildering array of color options, trim levels, optional equipment packages, and other customizable factors.

This results in hundreds of potential variations and it can be very challenging, especially from the advertisers' point of view, to showcase all of these options and show the best-fitting option to each prospective buyer. In this case, Ford Netherlands was looking to promote four different car lines, resulting in 249 different possible variations! They wanted to use video to convey strong brand messages, but creating videos for each of these variations manually would've been impossible. 

Ford and their agencies Greenhouse Group & Mindshare Netherlands turned to Smartly.io as our Dynamic Video automation was the key to unlocking their campaign goals.

Personalized Videos Based on Car Configuration

Ford & Greenhouse Group used Smartly.io's Video Templates to generate & target hundreds of personalized videos, which were customized based on people's interests and other characteristics. The videos were built using several different video and graphic components: they started with different humorous, snackable video clips, followed by an intro clip of a car line enriched with specific USPs (such as air conditioning, automated lane watch, navigation, airbags, etc.), and a closure video with the brand logo. The video content was then optimized further during the campaign based on initial performance.

The results were validated using Brand Recall Lift testing, a Facebook tool that lets advertisers measure the impact on brand metrics from Facebook advertising in a statistically significant way.

Increased Brand Performance and -87% Cost Per Website Visit

The campaign measured both improvements in brand metrics as well as visits to Ford NL's website and usage of the car configurator tool there (as this is a strong early indicator of buying intent). Using personalized video had very positive effects on all of these metrics when compared to earlier campaigns. Based on the success of these campaigns, Ford now customizes their advertising in a similar manner for even more car lines.

See the full case study video from Greenhouse Group / Mindshare  below.