Castrol, a market leader, is known for its quality and decades of legacy. However, the category suffers from low involvement. Consumers don't tend to have an opinion on which engine oil goes into their vehicle. Furthermore, Castrol commands a 40 percent price premium over competition.
It was, therefore, imperative for Castrol to retain its lead and further grow its market share. To achieve this objective, the company had to reach out to car owners and get consumers to be more involved in the decision-making process.
For engine oil, the tangible benefit of quality oil is not understood, and car owners find it too technical, too boring, and possibly redundant to delve into it.
Aiming towards behavior change, the brand demanded car owners to have an opinion on the engine oil being poured into their vehicles. Castrol, therefore, conducted consumer research and identified a key consumer insight that the campaign was built on: Noise and vibrations are the simplest indicators of suboptimal engine oil.
The target demographic was a male Indian car-owner who loves his car. This demographic isn't interested and doesn't have knowledge to evaluate engine oils. He is highly dependent on the mechanic's opinion.
Castrol identified channels to showcase the proposition to car owners, precisely targeted by strategically leveraging key data partners, as seen below:
Using humor, Castrol magnified the issue of noise and vibration to creatively deliver a seemingly boring communication. The brand showcased "the average family sedan vibrating like a tractor."
The video drove a 70 percent reach on YouTube and Facebook. Castrol also brought the concept to life using a rich-media display ad. Transactional data helped target car-owners who were out of warranty and pushed the audience onto OTTs and CTV to deliver the brand's comms.
Castrol further targeted in-car audiences via audio and partnered with BigFM and RadioMirchi as well as created a dial-in game of "Live Antakshari." Furthermore, a precise consumer journey was crafted basis product intent and interest. Content activations helped build resonance throughout.
The OIL (open targeting, in-market audience, loyalty) framework was built to tactfully deliver on the media goals:
Open Targeting
Leveraging CTV, Castrol launched on IPL and its proprietary geo-spatial tool targeted high-vehicular density location on OTTs.
In-Market
Castrol targeted car-owners out of warranty; via PayTM and PhonePe, Castrol targeted fast-tag transactions layered with car-insurance renewals. Similarly, on Truecaller, Castrol identified Insurance and OEM caller signals. In addition, the company targeted cohorts of pre-loved vehicles. Moreover, Castrol drove bottom funnel by sharp shooting purchasers of engine-oil and car-care products on Amazon and Flipkart.
Further, Castrol built brand-love through connected car-Bluetooth listeners via Spotify, as well as having a consistent presence on auto-portals like Autocar, MotorOctane and CarDekho.
Castrol's partnership with popular content series, The Bombay Journey, drove required association through branded placements and integrations during the drive-along celeb interviews.
YouTube showed a 7.2 percent relative lift against purchase intent, showing the consumer journey's effectiveness. Targeting car-owners on PayTM also paid off with above benchmark results across all relative BLS lifts, including ad recall at 18 percent, awareness at 10 percent, and consideration 12 percent.
