Chevrolet: MANGA COMIC

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Magazines

Advertiser: GENERAL MOTORS

Product/Service: CHEVROLET CRUZE

Date of First Appearance: Jan 2 2010 12:00AM

Entrant Company: STARCOM , Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Deputy General Manager: Manikandan Hari (Starcom MediaVest Group)

Media Manager: Vinod Kumar (Starcom MediaVest Group)

Media Supervisor: Mazen Haddad (Starcom MediaVest Group)

Media Supervisor: Rommel Guiang (Starcom MediaVest Group)

Media Executive: Maria Fernandes (Starcom MediaVest Group)

Administration: Allan Guevara (Starcom MediaVest Group)

Administration: Richard Viray (Starcom MediaVest Group)

Branded Entertainment Consultant: Wael Hattar (Starcom MediaVest Group)

Junior Consultant: Muna Abudayyeh (Starcom MediaVest Group)

Media Manager: Khaled Abousleiman (Starcom MediaVest Group)

Media placement: Magazine - Risalat Al Jami'a - 01 January 2010

Media placement: Magazine - Mirat Al Jami'a - 01 March 2010



Results and Effectiveness

As part of the overall H&O campaign, Cruze sales to youth in Saudi Arabia touched an incredible 28% and overall sales exceeded forecast by 9% during the period. Chevrolet’s Brand Health Monitor figures for the attribute exciting / fun loving increased by 12 points among youth. The comic was published in university magazines, which were distributed in Saudi Arabia’s largest universities and reached 215,000 university students. Negotiated a special deal with the publisher of the magazines to provide space for our manga comic for free as we were providing much needed engaging content for their magazines.



Creative Execution

Instead of selling the university students cars, we told them a story. We created the first ever manga comic series in Saudi Arabia. The stories were centered around H&O experiencing Saudi Arabia for the first time. The manga comics were published across all the key university magazines featuring the adventures of H&O in the Middle East. Cruze was revealed within the comic, and the features were showcased within the context. We also invited the students to be part of the comic. By becoming fans of H&O on Facebook, they had the chance to star in the manga comics themselves.



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

Chevrolet launched their new compact car, the Cruze, with two bumbling Japanese spies called Hiroshi & Osamu (H&O). The car was aimed at first time car buyers in Saudi Arabia, of which university students were a significant number. Japanese comics/series have a huge heritage in our region; from Sasuki to Pokémon, the whole population was raised watching these characters. Youngsters would grow up and continue reading the mangas, tune in to online sites and read their favourite comics; A site like www.mexat.com, an Arabic subtitled manga attracts over 1.3 million unique users per month