heycar is an online marketplace for new and used cars that parked up in the UK in 2019. The business is owned by Mobility Trader Holding GmbH, whose shareholders include Volkswagen Group, Volkswagen Financial Services and Mercedes-Benz Mobility, Allianz and Renault Group and its subsidiary RCI Bank & Services. 

heycar started in the second-hand car market and added new cars to its offer in 2020. It has been a revolutionary pioneer in the new and used car market over the past few years – a sector that grew during the global pandemic when dealerships closed and people wanted to acquire vehicles to avoid using public transport. Consumers have shown increasing willingness to buy bigger ticket items like cars via online marketplaces if offered a seamless, friction-free process. 

But as the business opportunity boomed, the sector became fiercely competitive with heycar rivals such as Cazoo and Cinch also racing for a piece of the action. These two businesses have much deeper marketing pockets, although as Cazoo recently found this does not guarantee success. Source

Insight

Our preliminary research found that the car-buying category and the purchase process wasn’t perceived as fun, but a real chore. Studies on the emotional journey of car buying showed the pre-purchase moment was littered with overwhelmingly negative emotions like dread and discomfort, and our primary research confirmed these findings. When we asked customers to describe the used car buying process the stress was clear.  

In a category that leaned into the pain points of the car buying process we were determined to find a different approach. 

Talking to customers, we knew that there is a universal moment of pure joy when you have the keys in your hands and your new wheels await. And that is the feelgood confidence you can experience at every stage of the car buying journey when you buy with heycar. 

Bringing the noise – the execution

Armed with this creative platform, we had to find a ‘something’ that could amplify this feeling of energy and happiness. The competitors had invested heavily in sporting connections, but what speaks more of the in-car experience, the open road, and the breeze in your hair (that’s the dream anyway) than music? So, we made sure music’s cultural connection to the car was embedded in our campaigns.

The first multi-channel heycar campaign Atomic created in 2020 focused on an ad featuring a new car owner performing an extraordinarily perfect lip-sync to Flo Rida’s iconic track ‘Good Feeling’. The driver then ups his game by lip-syncing to the rapid-fire rapping in the track. 

It was good. It brought energy and irreverent humour to this ‘pre-loved’ car market. But we knew we could aim for great. For the next iteration we shifted up a gear.

Did we put gas in heycar’s tank? The Results 

The customer journey is underpinned by brand awareness. Prior to appointing us, heycar’s 2019 launch campaign and H1 2020 campaign had driven 5% Brand Awareness and they set us the challenging target of achieving an uplift to 15% Prompted Brand Awareness. We are delighted with our effort and achieved this goal, hitting a peak of 20.1%awareness during the campaign period – heycar’s highest ever result!

We are particularly proud that awareness was not just apparent in a spike around the campaign but was sustained across the year – 9% awareness at the start of 2022 but a significant 17% at the start of 2023. This campaign had a hook built for longevity.

The ad and associated integrated activity had to ensure heycar was linked with its core business and the creative was a clear success at associating the brand with used cars - Brand Association enjoyed a directional lift with 90% confidence level, giving us faith in the long-term brand implications. 

And the activity pushed a 10% uplift in all-important brand consideration.