'We’re not satisfied being market leader of a category which is getting smaller': TomTom rolls out new campaign as part of refreshed brand strategy
TomTom has launched its first above-the-line campaign in several years for the real-time travel service, TomTom Traffic, on the back of an overhaul to its brand strategy.
There is increasing competition in this sector from the likes of Google, which this year acquired real-time travel app Waze, however TomTom said the sat-nav category as a whole has been declining.
“We’re not satisfied with being a market leader of a category which is getting smaller. We believe it’s our responsibility to stop the decline of the category and eventually start to grow the category again. We felt this was really the right moment for us to engage with consumers and bring traffic top of mind,” explained Gary Raucher, TomTom’s senior vice president of marketing.
“If you were to ask most people on the street what they think of TomTom today they would immediately associate the brand just with satellite navigation when in reality we already do much more with sat-nav," he said. "So it was important for us that we look to reposition the brand in such a way that it allowed us to grow into new categories in future and also allowed us to create more of an emotional connection with consumers because we wanted to make sure that we played a meaningful role in peoples’ lives on a daily basis. So rather than being known just for satellite navigation, TomTom wants to be known for making it easier for people to achieve their goals.”
To solidify its proposition and appeal to drivers who may drive the same routes everyday, it has launched a campaign for its own real-time traffic service, comprising a series of radio spots as well as print and social media activity.
Devised by Tribal DDB Amsterdam, the adverts play on the awkward reasons one might have for wanting a journey to be over as quickly as possible, such as mistakenly thinking someone is pregnant or cack-handedly insulting someone’s partner.
“Obvious reasons for quicker journeys are that all important interview, getting to the hospital on time, your best friend's wedding. But this product is made for the every day,” explained Mark Chalmers, executive creative director at DDB & Tribal Worldwide.
“So we took a new angle and started uncovering all those moments and faux pas where a need for a quicker journey is essential - finally something to laugh about in traffic.”
To maintain momentum during its ten week run, the campaign will develop as a series involving yet-to-be-announced comedians and social media.
“With our print work we're sharing these funny awkward scenarios, in radio we got to a point where we ditched the script and worked with comedians improvising and bringing cringe worthy moments alive and our next step in social media is to progress this natural flow - the UK's public will be able to join in and make this campaign their own as we'll be doing live improvised comedy from cars,” said Chalmers.
The campaign rolled out this week, with media planning and buying handled by MEC.