It’s gotta be a tough racket selling a product that people don’t think about until they desperately need one. Take car batteries for example. I turn the key and my car starts until one day it doesn’t. The shelves of batteries at the auto parts store are mostly indistinguishable except for a few recognizable names like Die Hard or Interstate. But which to choose? I choose the middle-ground version. Not the top of the line but not too cheap either.
So how do you stay top of mind when you’re just not on people’s minds very often? If you have billions of dollars, you could produce a really slick TV spot and run it a hundred times a day on every channel for a year or so. Or you could save a few 100 million bucks with killer out-of-home ads that viewers find hard to forget. Interstate Batteries is doing just that with a campaign touting their dependability. Now when I stare at the wall of batteries, I choose Interstate because those billboards, and ultimately the brand name, really stuck in my head.
Notice the lack of a call-to-action or contact information. The action they want is for viewers to remember the brand name in the future when they staring at that wall of batteries. They don’t need more web traffic. They don’t need more phone calls. They don’t even need you to stop everything and buy one now. They just need you to remember the Interstate name. Thou shalt not always use a call-to-action.
Dallas-based Firehouse developed the intricate 3D billboards with the help of Small Creations. Some words from Greg Hunter, Group Creative Director:
When batteries are your business, dependability is kind of a big deal. With that in mind, we created this eye-catching outdoor campaign to tell people that Interstate Batteries aren’t just dependable, they’re outrageously dependable.
Santa Claus. A fireman. A lifeguard. Pretty darn dependable. I wonder what his the cutting room floor. Tax collectors. Grim Reaper. Yeah, they should stick with the other three.