CHALLENGE: To launch its new Assurance TripleMax (ATM) tire, Goodyear required a creative campaign to reach a target audience in a low-consumer-engagement product category: car tires. The product had outstanding technology and strong design-based selling points. But from a communications perspective, targets were not interested in these details when making a purchase choice.

OBJECTIVE: Goodyear required a campaign with a more emotional connection.

STRATEGY: With the insight that targets were interested, instead, in the safety of their children and loved ones when driving on China's roads during rainy season, and that ATM performed especially well in the rain, the yellow rubber duck was identified as a perfect creative device to use as the centre-point of an integrated online and offline campaign.

Associated with helping young children feel safe in the water at bath-time, a yellow rubber duck could be used in a light-hearted way to communicate that, with ATM, drivers can feel happy about keeping their loved ones safe in watery driving road conditions.

EXECUTION: Featuring prominently throughout the PR campaign combining PR elements of interaction, entertainment, education, exposure and fun, the Goodyear rubber duck provided a touch-point to represent innate feelings of happiness and safety that offered a 'human element' when promoting what is typically a low-involvement product.

OUTCOME: By developing this positive connection with the target audience in a creative way, the response to ATM, reflected both in sales performance and the number of interactions with the PR campaign, proved that awareness and reputation were successfully enhanced.

An integrated online and offline campaign was implemented with focused activity in six of China's major cities.

This included: teaser activities to surprise drivers with the placement of hundreds of rubber ducks in public spaces; thematic online videos to highlight the emotional message and safety benefits in an entertaining way; a campaign mini-site to host a variety of consumer engagement activities such as a photo competition; banner ads and SEM; radio advertising at targeted times of the day to catch drivers during their daily driving routines; distribution of 1.3 million branded ducks; in-store promotion including training staff to explain how the duck can be used to encourage calm driving; and an official media launch event.

Central to all of this activity was the Goodyear-branded yellow rubber duck icon.

The campaign was executed over July-September when drivers will typically consider their tires in relation to the changing season and local rainy conditions.

Awareness: The rubber duck helped achieve 81% recognition for the campaign, against 51% average recognition for previous Goodyear campaigns (ATM Campaign Media Impact Analysis 2013, Millward Brown).

Brand awareness grew with statistically significant increases in unaided and total awareness (95% confidence level), while Bridgestone awareness was observed as flat and Michelin declined.

Knowledge: Perceived performance on wet roads among all competitive brands jumped to #2 (up from #4) during this campaign, proving that our key message and seasonal focus were successfully communicated (Millward Brown).

Business Impact: Sales exceeded forecast by 26% for the first 6 months in market. The forecast set was aggressive given this product offered a major competitive point of difference and underlying mid-car segment growth was healthy at 7%. Achieved while monitored ad spend shows our top 3 competitors combined outspent our campaign budget by 18:1 with Bridgestone alone outspending Goodyear by 8:1 (Nielsen data, July-October 2013).