Every year in Romania, the owners of old, wrecked cars receive vouchers from the Government to buy new ones. To attract customers, auto brands start playing “Cut the Price”.

Opel decided to invent a whole new game, so it launched OPEL MINI WRECK, the first car-recycling program for children. Parents and kids visited the showrooms, gave away old toy cars and got new Opel models! Colorful outdoor billboards, made entirely out of old toy cars, and placed on high traffic streets, conveyed the message from youngsters to parents.

Opel transformed ordinary Romanian kids into endorsers for the brand, convincing their parents to visit Opel showrooms. Without the support of a big media budget, the main stake of the campaign was to make it grow viral, and thus generate enough earned media to reach our target before the official launch of the program.

On the first day, 25% of the audience signed up for the program. There were over 90,000 Facebook impressions, 25% increase in showroom visits, €1.7 million in earned media and thousands of children’s smiles :)

Past communication showed that almost all auto brands targeted a faceless consumer and looked only for their wallet. It was a promotional clutter about to repeat itself also in 2013. Opel decided to be the first brand to put a face on the voucher owners, as its brand promise is “real cars for real people”.

An outdoor billboard made entirely out of old toy cars presented the first car-recycling program for children. Parents with vouchers were given an extra reason to visit the showrooms, so their kids could give away their old toy cars and get new Opel models.

OPEL MINI WRECK was a program for children, but the end-target was represented by their parents.

With our MINI WRECK campaign, we reached 25% of the Wreck target audience, in the first 2 days.

There were over 90,000 Facebook impressions and 1.7 million euro worth of earned media. Also, during OPEL MINI WRECK period, visits in showrooms increased by 25%.

Due to the pilot-program success, Opel decided to organize OPEL MINI WRECK at a national level the next year too.