Launching Pumped across the media mix

On 2nd August 2019, Caltex customers learned they were no longer able to access fuel savings via the AA Smartfuel loyalty programme. Cue potential frustration, confusion, and a massively detrimental effect on fuel volume. How could Caltex convince customers they had something better to offer now that they were no longer part of AA Smartfuel – and protect volume and market share?

Enter Pumped. Pumped was the existing fuel loyalty programme at Z Energy, with Fly Buys and Airpoints as partners. This was a strong proposition for Caltex, offering customers not only every day fuel discounts but the added benefit of being able to earn Fly Buys points or Airpoints dollars every time they fuel up. Caltex took an offence strategy, directly competing with AA Smartfuel with a goal to get as many customers to switch to Pumped as possible.

Chemistry was tasked to develop an integrated launch campaign that would position Pumped as the best loyalty programme in the fuel retail industry, building on the Caltex brand positioning  ‘It’s a local thing’. The campaign was driven by a series of sophisticated animated TVCs created in partnership with Yukfoo, which got attention and stand out at the awareness level, and were then repurposed for use across the media mix to drive engagement and sign ups.

Caltex Pumped ‘Conga’ TVC 30″ from Chemistry on Vimeo.

Caltex Pumped ‘Granny’ TVC 15″ from Chemistry on Vimeo.

A considerable part of the media budget was invested in social channels (Facebook & Instagram). To ensure our content reached the intended audience and got cut-through in these channels, we took key frames from the TVCs and reworked them into a number of short videos in our in-house studio. The videos ranged in length depending on their placement, with a mix of 15 and 6 second executions.

Our ability to create these quickly and in-house meant Caltex could invest in multiple videos which could be optimised based on performance.  With the engaging animation and short style of video, we ensured that the content was consumed quickly and ad recall remained high.

Caltex Pumped Social Save 1 of 3 from Chemistry on Vimeo.

Caltex Pumped Social TVC Story v 2 from Chemistry on Vimeo.

To date the videos have delivered strong scale with 8.3 million impressions, and as at 17 September over 800,000 unique reach, with an average frequence of 10 ad views across the campaign.