Not only has Goodyear’s “Get there” media campaign gathered significant traction as an effective vehicle for selling tires, it has also garnered a coveted Effie Award to recognize “advertising that has had the greatest impact on the advertiser’s bottom line and celebrate the creative ideas and strategies that make a marketing campaign successful.” The Effie follows on the heels of an Ogilvy Award for marketing research excellence, which Goodyear won in April. The winning campaign returned the iconic Goodyear blimp to a lead role in the company’s consumer advertising for the first time in more than 20 years. Its aim was to express the firm’s “values, attitude and commitment to consumers.” Five television ads leveraging the “tremendous consumer equity” surrounding the blimp were produced for the “Get there” campaign. In the commercials, a veteran blimp pilot and a young, eager-to-learn pilot become the vehicle to demonstrate the company’s commitment to delivering technologically superior products. The blimp becomes a metaphor for Goodyear’s unique “vantage point” on America’s drivers and roads, and the two pilots, who can see where people are going and what challenges the weather and the roads present, become the voice communicating product benefits in an easy to understand way. “The spots are funny and warm and seek to entertain and inform consumers about all the ways Goodyear’s innovative, technologically advanced products can help them confidently get where they are going,” according to executives involved with the production. “We worked hand-in-hand with Goodyear to identify two key themes that define the company,” says Kevin Scher, executive vice president and group managing director at ad agency McCann Erickson, which shared the award along with the MPG agency of Boston and HFA advertising of Akron, Ohio. “First, Goodyear has enormous historic power and a tremendous emotional bond with consumers because it owns one of the most successful brand-building tools, the Goodyear blimp. Second, Goodyear is also a global leader as a technological innovator across all of its product lines and businesses. So we married these two themes, creating a campaign that resonates with history but celebrates the future.” Scher credits the Goodyear marketing team, led by Joey Viselli, Goodyear brand director, and Marty Kozar, director of marketing services, for laying out the two-pronged strategy. “The Goodyear team was comprised of true brand evangelists. They wanted advertising that was truthful and connected with consumers in a very simple, logical way,” Scher says. “This resulted in the kind of work that really explains the Goodyear brand and what it means.” According to Viselli, Goodyear’s success in recent years through strong consumer acceptance of new products, and the related product marketing, is proof that the company is on the right track. “The Effie Award helps to validate that Goodyear is not only an industry leader in offering innovative and relevant tires, but in communicating the product benefits in innovative and relevant ways,” he says. Now in its 40th year, the Effie Awards are one of the most coveted awards in marketing, celebrating advertising that works in the marketplace with consumers -- who are the ultimate judge of any marketing campaign’s relevance, intelligence and effectiveness. The Effies are awarded in more than 30 countries. The company currently has three active airships in North America serving as “Aerial Ambassadors,” including: The Spirit of Goodyear, based in Akron; the Spirit of America based near Los Angeles; and the Spirit of Innovation based in Pompano Beach, Fla. For more information, visit www.goodyeartires.com. |