Background information
In this week’s egtabite we showcase a creative campaign that was recently presented at egta’s Online Talk on creativity in radio/audio. Intergreate, the creative hub of DPG Media Advertising (leading media sales house in Flanders, Belgium) cooperated with a car brand in an immensely successful competition that both excited listeners and generated a huge buzz.
The 1000th Maarten & Dorothee Morning Show
Popular Qmusic morning show duo, Maarten & Dorothee, wanted to do something spectacular to celebrate their 1000th show together. For the occasion, DPG teamed up with Hyundai Bayon for a partnership and a barter deal. Hyundai wanted to reach the younger generation and promote their new affordable SUV. Teaming up with Qmusic was a perfect match given the station’s young audience base. The co-branding of Qmusic and Hyundai reflected well on the brand making it look cool to the youngsters.
Inspired by the now legendary Oprah car giveaway, Qmusic announced that every caller who managed to go live on air between 6am and 9am during the 1000th show would win a car. On top of that, one car was hidden away somewhere in Flanders for listeners to find. The number of cars to be given away was kept secret.
Listeners that called on the day of the giveaway had to convince the call operator why they deserved to go live on-air to win a car. If their story was strong enough, they were invited to go on-air and won the coveted prize. A total of six people ended up winning a brand-new Hyundai Bayon between 6am and 9am. In total seven cars were given away. The seventh car was hidden somewhere in Flanders and clues were given on air during the morning show on where to find it. In the clues, Qmusic integrated the Hyundai campaign ‘discover new heights‘. The first listener to find the car, call Maarten & Dorothee directly from the mobile phone left inside the car, was told to keep the car and drive it home there and then.
Campaign video
Campaign and results
The campaign ran on radio, TV, print, online and on social media in May and June 2021. The number of users of the Qmusic app doubled during the promotion campaign and the station’s website saw four times more users than average. Unique listener reach doubled for the morning show as well.
On the day of the show, the special free-to-call 0800 number received 1.9 million calls – 600 calls per second at its peak. The huge volume of calls caused the telco provider, Proximus, to become overloaded and forced them to temporarily suspend the line. This actually generated a lot of press attention to the campaign, which was even covered in the evening news.
Maarten & Dorothee themselves were shocked by the success of the show. “What a fantastic morning that was. We are very grateful to all our listeners,” the two said. “A lot of people clearly wanted to win a new car. We also received a lot of congratulations via our Q app. We could feel the thrill and the excitement ourselves when we told listeners live on the radio that they had won a brand new car. We wouldn’t have wanted to celebrate our 1000th show in any other way than with all our listeners. On to 1000 more shows together.”
Isabelle Michiels, Marketing Manager at Hyundai Belux commented: “We are very satisfied with the results of the campaign! The return and the reactions exceeded our wildest expectations. It was a great action, and fun to introduce the new BAYON to Flanders with such a stunt. Moreover, as a brand, it’s great to get the chance to have a positive impact on the lives of listeners.”