This program gave Mazda the opportunity to lean into its core values and 100-year history of following Omotenashi - the mindset of putting other’s needs first. As the world faced unprecedented times during the global pandemic, Mazda chose to?focus less on its cars and more on supporting the people living through this crisis. The PR strategy was to advance Mazda’s commitment to community, pull through its brand equity in media coverage, and lift the brand’s value among target customers.

In Japan, there is a philosophy called Omotenashi -- putting other’s needs first – which was integral to Mazda’s founding mission in 1920. When the pandemic hit, healthcare workers risked their health to help others. Mazda offered them free vehicle cleanings and oil changes, regardless of their car’s make/model, to ensure their safety on the road. With every interaction, we recognized that spirit of Omotenashi within them. This inspired Mazda to lean into its values to create Mazda Heroes. Our brief was to develop a program to amplify Mazda’s values through the recognition/support of those giving back during the pandemic.

The objectives:

•Bring Mazda’s 100-year history of Omotenashi to life during the pandemic, by focusing less on cars and more on the people

•Develop compelling content around the Mazda Heroes for owned channels and to leverage in earned media placements

•350 million impressions

•70 earned placements

•80% message pull-through of

The program was developed to spotlight individuals in the US who were selflessly giving back to their communities during the pandemic. Hundreds of heartwarming nominations began pouring in once the nationwide campaign launched to find 50 community heroes who embodied this spirit of selflessness. These “heroes” ranged from young adults creating free grocery delivery services for those at high risk of contracting the virus, to community members partnering with local restaurants to provide free meals to healthcare workers, to musicians creating curbside concerts for the senior community who had to remain indoors. Awareness among Mazda’s target audience was generated through a communications ecosystem of digital content and earned media coverage across national, local, lifestyle and automotive media. Both centered around rich storytelling of the uplifting efforts of the winners, the impact they had on their community and how they were being recognized by Mazda for their efforts to give back.

The brand’s history of leadership in the face of unprecedented challenges made this moment a natural time to engage, while being mindful of that the program’s tone, timing and approach honored our heroes.

Key messages:

•Mazda planned celebrations for its 100th Anniversary, but given 2020’s challenges, we pivoted to express the brand’s heritage of working to make things better in our local communities.

•Mazda dealers shared countless stories of heroes selflessly giving back, inspiring us to create the Mazda Heroes program.

•We honored 50 heroes with a special piece of our history – a Mazda MX-5 Miata 100th?Anniversary Special Edition

Target audiences:

•U.S. consumers

•Essential workers

The team developed content around the winners for Mazda’s owned channels (website, social, CRM), and to leverage for earned media placements. The assets became a powerful tool, allowing media to share the emotional stories of hometown heroes, resulting in hundreds of placements.

The program was developed as a two phased earned-focused effort with integration among communications, digital, social, experiential, and regional retail teams.

•Phase 1: The cross-functional team was charged with amplifying the program to drive mass awareness around the nomination period in October. We collaborated with Good Morning America (GMA) to reach millions of viewers and also secured top tier media outreach to drive awareness and encourage story submissions between Oct. 5 and Oct 25.

•Phase 2: On Dec. 2, we announced the first three of the 50 community heroes during a story-first GMA segment lasting nearly 7 ½ minutes – surprising them live on air, immediately followed by the lifting of an embargo on another three recipients; over the weeks that followed, the team announced 44 additional recipients in local markets across the country. Video assets including honoree stories were optimized for robust media relations with under resourced media outlets.

Our earned media outcome surpassed Mazda’s most successful recent product launches and brand campaigns with comprehensive coverage spanning national, local and automotive media. While the sheer volume of placements was a significant achievement, the quality of coverage was equally impressive. Nearly every placement prominently included the program’s key messages and emphasized our core values: Challenger spirit, ingenious solutions, commitment to community and Omotenashi. Beyond all the communications success, we truly felt honored to present 50 selfless Americans with a very personal thank you. The program earned more than 40 individual editorial placements within the first 48 hours prior to kicking off local winner key ceremonies at dealerships, including pieces with Advocate, Forbes, KPRC-TV (Houston) and WABC-TV (NYC).

Total results:

• 575 earned media placements

• Achieved 796% of the program story placement goal

• 1,601,247,387 estimated impressions

• Achieved 458% of the program impressions goal

• 100% of coverage was positive to neutral

• 100% of social conversation was positive

• Organic social reach of 1.1M with 139,000 engagements

• 912,000 unique “opens” across four newsletters

Collectively, the campaign drove a surge in positive brand perception that would uplift us into 2020 and beyond.

• 89% of consumers were impressed that the brand was running the program

• 85% were excited about the program

• 88% would consider buying our cars