Mazda Rev It Up/First Year
 

History:
Performance driving schools are an exciting, but expensive way for auto enthusiasts to improve their driving skills and fulfill their latent desire to feel like Mario Andretti for a few days. Mazda recognized this growing trend and initiated a program that would bring the experience to the masses, giving anyone with $40 a taste of performance driving instruction from bonafide pros with NASCAR, CART, IRL and road racing bloodlines. Plus it offered participants an opportunity to utilize those new found abilities to compete in a national driving championship with a chance to win a MAZDA6 sport sedan. While safety and driving control were being taught, Mazda benefited by putting 22,000+ people behind the wheel of its showcase MAZDA6 vehicle in a road test situation—an ideal way to bring new customers to the brand without having to get them into the dealer showroom.      

PR Program Goals:
Jackie Lapin Media Relations was retained by Automotive Marketing Consultants (AMCI), the producers of Mazda Rev It Up, and Mazda to attract a wide variety of active lifestyle enthusiasts to the event in 15 cities—enough to put as many as 1,000 people a day behind the wheel—and to inspire the media to cover the program. Ultimately, the coverage was directed to achieve three goals: reaffirm Mazda’s image for making autos that have “the soul of a sportscar,” create an exciting and successful perennial program which generates mass consumer interaction with a new Mazda showcase vehicle each year, and to increase sales to those who experience the car in a performance situation.     

Strategy:
The Mazda Rev It Up (MRIU) campaign was undertaken in three stages. Jackie Lapin worked closely alongside Mazda PR staff. First was the effort to educate the automotive and marketing industry trade media with the program--Automotive Age, Brandweek, Sports Business Journal. The second phase focused on national automotive enthusiast media and national lifestyle press (men’s magazines). The third was to zero in on each of the 15 key markets where the event was set to be staged.

Tasks:
1. Creating a media kit that reached out to a vast array of media from automotive journalists to auto racing columnists to news editors and morning radio show hosts. Content focused on the event, the well known driving instructors, what participants could learn from the school, the championship, and accompanying lifestyle activities that made it a unique event quite different from a typical performance driving school. 

2. Developing a very comprehensive website to accommodate the needs of hundreds of journalists in each market.  The MRIU site was created to enable media to seek out the specific information pertaining to his/her area of interest. It was structured to feature a section that offered generic national press releases for national media, one that broke down individual releases for each specific market with the information exclusive to that region for regional media, and a separate photo gallery—divided into action photos, instructor headshots, Mazda vehicle shots, Mazda executive spokespeople, and event logos. The shots of the championship event and the winner were ultimately added, as well. Thus, it saved tremendous time for MRIU PR staff, directing media to the site instead of individually emailing or mailing info/photos to reporters. Media kits were only sent to specific media who needed a hard copy and then were provided onsite, but everyone else was directed to the site.

3. Writing and orchestrating the pitching process. It was felt that a generic pitch was not personalized enough. Journalists needed to understand how Mazda Rev It Up could best be covered or appreciated by their audience. Thus, different pitches were created to reach the following media: automotive writers and radio show hosts, motorsports columnists, morning TV talk show producers, news planning desks, TV sports producers, TV meteorologists,  newspaper city/transportation/traffic editors, calendar editors, feature/lifestyle editors, long lead regional magazine editors, weekly alternative/entertainment publications, community and ethnic newspapers, radio morning talk show producers and hosts, radio promotions director, sports radio, all-news radio assignment personnel and appropriate business media. A comprehensive calendar was created to instruct the distribution house on what dates each should be issued in the individual markets, along with the press releases.

4. National media pitching. The agency began the national effort by placing advance stories with all automotive enthusiast media. Results included: Autoweek, Road & Track, Automobile,  AutoMundo, Miata Magazine, North American Pylon,  Sport Truck, African Americans on Wheels, etc. Efforts then began to recruit national TV and radio media to cover upcoming events. These included Super2NR on TNN/Spike, Motorweek TV on SpeedChannel, MotorTrend Radio, Car & Driver Radio. Automotive enthusiast websites also helped to drive registration.

5. Advanced regional media push. Based on advance lead times, the staff worked forward starting with long lead media and eventually pitching last minute TV planning editors and city editors in all 15 markets. First stories were focused on the novel event’s arrival in town and the opportunity for local residents to sign up. Usually such stories were written by auto section editors and weekend calendar/entertainment editors. Radio promotions were offered to stations, which offered tickets for their listeners to participate and a chance for their personalities to experience MRIU. Some of the results included: San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Washington Times and Newsday.

6. Event coverage push. The agency switched over to recruiting reporters to experience the program personally. A key target was TV morning news shows. Second was feature editors, columnists and cityside reporters. Interviews were offered with the driving instructors, who included NASCAR’s Randy Tolsma,  Print media covering included Orange County Register, Miami Herald , Boston Herald, New York Times, and numerous suburban dailies. More than two dozen TV major, segments were generated in the 15 markets, despite a slow start due to launching MRIU during the first weekend of the war with Iraq.

7. National finals coverage. Jackie Lapin Media Relations embarked on an effort to generate stories in the hometown newspapers where the 20 finalists resided. At the same time, the agency approached national media to cover the event, as well as local media in the Monterey/Salinas area where the finals were being held at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. National magazine AMI Autoworld sent a reporter as well as the local TV stations and two of the regional newspapers did advance stories. After the event wrapped, up a release was issued both nationally and to the local hometown media, resulting in stories in both media segments, noting the winner and close runners-up.

Results:

Mazda Rev It Up was deemed a major success on all fronts. The publicity helped to draw more than 22,000 participants, including many newcomers, as well as long time automotive enthusiasts. Oftentimes competitors came with family members or with friends, to learn and compete together. Overall media coverage well exceeded expectations, and contributed to the decision to continue the event in succeeding years. Statistical analysis revealed that sales increased, directly attributable to buyers who had participated in Mazda Rev It Up.