Over the last years, automotive industry almost spent a billion euros trying to sell electric cars. Even though people all agree the future belongs to electric car, only 7% are ready to buy one today. The remaining 93% still think they need more autonomy, infrastructures or to leave in a big city to switch to electric. As the leader in electric, Renault had to find a new way to prove them wrong and convince them that switching to electric is possible now and everywhere.

To prove them wrong, Renault created the first 100% EV City.

Where? In Appy. The remotest town in France.

If switching to all-electric in the remotest town in France is possible, then it’s possible everywhere. So, by turning Appy into the first ever 100% electric vehicles city, we showed to the whole world that switching to electric is accessible for everyone, and everywhere.

We brought all-electric Renault ZOE to replace every single car of all inhabitants of Appy, for 3 years.

And voila, this village officially became the first city on Earth driving only electric cars. After 6 months of driving only ZOE, nothing has changed in this town. People still drive as much as before without having any lack of autonomy or missing infrastructures. So, we made a 15 minutes documentary about it and broadcasted it on TV and online to prove once and for all how easy and possible it is to switch to electric.

Journalists started to talk about the campaign more than 1 month before the launch of the campaign generating 400.000€ of earned media.

After we launched the campaign, broadcasted our documentary online and on TV, we reached 1.000.000€ of earned media and 63.000.000 views for 29.000.000 of impressions.

6 months after the launch of the campaign, Renault increased its ZOE’s sells by 50% and officially became the best E.V. seller in Europe.