Strategy

Motorcycle lubricant is a unique industry since the product is closely related to daily lifestyle and commuting routine of Vietnamese people. Vietnamese two-wheeler users are categorized into three major groups characterized by their motorbike usage and servicing behaviors: the Basic users, the Caregiver users, and the Speed Enthusiast users. Amongst these three, the speed enthusiast was selected to be Motul’s primary focus when the brand set its first foot into Vietnam market more than a decade ago. As time progresses, the market has been faced with multiple changes in consumer demography, values, usage behaviors, purchase willingness, as well as product newness. According to statistical data by the Vietnamese National Traffic Committee (2021), Vietnam is home to nearly 50 million motorbikes in 2021. In 2022 alone, the Vietnam motorcycle market welcomed a significant turn-around in sales after continuous drop resulted by the pandemic. (Motorcycles Data, 2022). This vastly increasing demand for two-wheelers and post-pandemic changes in consumer spending patterns have been presenting a potential growth for lubricant industry and Motul, in terms of expanding its consumer pool and fostering commercial performance. Thus, owing to this market growth momentum, Motul – as one of the market dominants in the sector – aimed to take proactive actions to capitalize on this market opportunity.

The Signature campaign in 2022 marked a major triumph that transformed Motul, rejuvenating the brand’s image and taking a fresher and younger consumer group on Motul’s board (the Caregiver group including younger GenZ). Specifically, Motul has essentially focused effort on expanding its range of product offerings by adding scooter lubricants as hero products to the brand’s existing lubricants for large displacement motorbike. This brand-refreshing innovation has posed a grand challenge for Motul in this campaign – How could the brand approach and persuade the new Caregiver group while being able to stay relevant to the existing Speed Enthusiast group?

Insight

We have successfully conceptualized the two consumer portraits, each having their own tension as follow:

• Speed Enthusiast: despite their presence for several years now, speed lovers/racers/motorbike backpackers are still framed in a dust/wind appearance, rebellious and socially distant image that is distinct from the common analogy of the Vietnamese. Due to their passion for testing their boundaries and reaching “no man land”, these unique individuals find it hard to express themselves and their own idiosyncrasies, which also makes others unable to understand their unusual hobbies and wild behaviors.
• Caregivers: with this breadth of social connection, more than any other generations, generation Z has developed a more heightened than ever needs for their unique personalities and egos to be presentable and recognized by not just their own community but other generations. This personality archetype spans across daily exemplars: the curious travel bloggers, the trend-setters (fashionista), the ones who dare to go against their family norms (entertainer), but their commonality is the fear of mediocrity. Yet, this desire to be their unique self is constrained by social judgement of other generations, and more importantly the absence of a “little society” where their like-minded people are assembled, and their true inner self is promoted judge-free.

Despite divergent sets of personality-like characteristics, we have found a common motivation and tension shared by two groups: they are both fear of mediocrity / ordinary and are instead driven to express their perceived unique idiosyncratic properties of themselves. However, they are yet to find a “selective society” where they can freely express their own non-ordinary colors and are adored by the like-mindedones. This little society is needed, as it allows them to circulate their unique life experience moments throughout social media but still remain mysterious and selective within their own like-minded community.

In terms of media behavior, these groups also share many same deeds: they like short content such as short videos (We are Social & Hootsuite. 2021. Digital in Vietnam), prefer to believe in alumni rather than a big celebrity endorsement. Moreover, in the post-covid context, there are still few gathering playgrounds for this community group. That’s why they prefer to go out, rather than just spend all their time on social media (Google, 2021. Think with Google)

Creative Idea

We draw on the shared DNAs analyzed above to conceptualize the creative concept of Motul Signature- the intense desire to express a strong and unique idiosyncrasies. In order to implement our creative4concept, we chose costumes as a way to reflect and express users’ unique DNAs. We believe costumer was an effective way to do so, since costume is the first thing one can see from the others when they first meet, and psychology research has over the past decades proved that costume can signal the wearer’s personality, characteristics, mood and what they are as a person. More importantly, the idea of using costumes to signal user’s DNAs was implemented by no brands in Vietnam back to the time this campaign commenced (e.g., Castrol dominated in gaming and e-sport sphere, Shell and Kixx universally endorsed sport stars Quang Hai, Van Lam). Taken together, Motul has found an innovative and unique direction for the “Make it Motul – Make it Your Signature” campaign – Motul now is not only a lubricant brand, but also the lifestyle for the new generation. This also marks the first time ever a lubricant brand and a local fashion house have co-created and launched a streetwear collection of which the design identity symbolizes freedom, liberty, and uniqueness. The innovative idea is subsequently manifested though two essential components:

• The streetwear fashion collection “Passionate” co-created by Motul and Headless – a growing local fashion house owned and led by Nguyễn Phạm Quang Minh, who has worked long service in creative sector and had solid experience in implementing similar projects.
• The event “Make It Motul – Make it your signature” – this was more than just a single place that Motul officially launched the collection to its consumers’ hands, but importantly was a “little community for like-minded individuals” that we explained at the outset. Themed as “music, fashion and passion” night, the event centralized groups of consumers who shared common motivations and demonstrated characteristics in harmony, a place for these individuals to express their own unique self, socialize, share peer-learning experience, inspire and get inspired by other passionate people.

Connection Plan

The campaign was operationalized on multiple touchpoints, including Motul-owned channels, Headless partner channels, event partner, KOL and PR amplification. The plan included critical milestones asbelow:

• Teasing: About a week before the official launching, Motul and Headless started arousing public curiosity with social media posts which were in the format of a movie-like fashion video. The video was created with a number of intense emotion-evoking musical and visual elements. Some keywords such as “Signature”,5“Passionate” were attached to social media posts from which social media interaction indices were tracked and monitored.
• Fashion Film and “Passionate” Collection Launching: On the launching date, the entire elements on Motul’s ecosystem were changed in accordance with the key visual of the campaign. After the fashion video had taken over the internet, a series of articles by supporting KOLs (besides the main KOLs) were promptly posted to generate halo effects to the collection and maximize users’ recognition of the brand. Supporting KOLs included biker (Gia Cat Viet Tuan, Cuong Cao Cao), fashionista & fashion community (Emma Nhat Khanh, Maybe we should talk about fashion, VOS community), travel blogger (Vinh Phan, Diễn đàn phân khối lớn). Besides their interest in Motul-Headless’s once-in-a-life-time co-creation, KOLs also opiniated their reactions about quality, design of the collection, mix-match suggestions, which was to develop more trust as well as engagement with consumers. Media and PR amplification then did the job to raise social media discussion related tothe campaign. From commercial-wise execution, we accepted pre-order with limited exclusive offers for early adopters, and this information was also out for public awareness to create a sense of urgency and scarcity of the collection and thus draw more consumers’ attention and engagement.
• Event launching: Succeeding the hot discussion on the fashion collection launch, Motul promptly announced the event “Make it Your Signature”, which was followed by the arrivals of more KOLs (e.g., Dabblo, Mai Am Nhac, MC Thu Ha etc.) who latter partook in the passionate discussion about the “Passionate” collection and the focal theme “Signature”. The participation and engagement of KOLs collectively generated triggering effects for the upcoming event. Of note that the event was run on a free ticket basis, in order to get more consumers on board to the event, we organized a giveaway in which those who won the prize would be awarded the free items of “Passionate” collection at the event.
• During the Event: On the event day, more KOL continued to check-in at the venue to attract more traffic. The event is also divided into 3 main sessions: Morning – Afternoon – Evening, with different activities to attract participants and create food for PR amplification later (early birds, sharing session by Le Gia Huy). The highlight belonged to the evening with a special music show by rappers in Passionate outfits brought to life for the first time.
• Amplify after Event: Motul has done many ways to amplify the campaign after the event. To continue to spread out the “Passionate” collection and Signature spirit, we have:
  • Organized a decal challenge: Users will receive a free set of motor stamps exclusively designed6based on the patterns of “Passionate” collection.
  • Video recap event and PR amplification, including interviewing Motul representatives about the Motul Signature ideation process.
  • Organized mix-match battles in fashion communities.
  • Sponsored for Gia Cat Viet Tuan’s racing team for international championship, under theme of “Young talents making their Signature on international stage”.

Objective – Base KPI

With the effort of creating a trendy, meaningful & objective-driven campaign, Motul Signature wassuccessful with remarkable numbers. All KPIs were exceeded significantly, considerably highearned/paid & shared/paid ratio prove for the good efficiency of the campaign implementation.

Reach: 8.4M+

Engagement: 834K+

Views: 560K+

Social discussion: 36K+

Earned/ Paid: 31.73%

Shared/ Paid: 7.46%

Further outcome Motul Signature brought about was creating the most momentum for Motul to achieve the 1st rank in SOV (sentiment score: 0.96) in Vietnam lubricant market 2022.

Categories: Social Media Campaign