Mamas Uncut with Vauxhall

We championed our award winning comediennes to help Vauxhall tear up the car marketing rule book to truly connect with mums, driving the biggest number of leads of any recent car launch.

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The Big Idea

“It might make more sense if you come back with your husband” – the words of a car dealer to a 37-year old working mum. Not in 1970, but in 2017. 82% of women are the decision-makers when buying a family car; 56% feel patronised by car advertising. Car brands simply don’t relate to them. Vauxhall & Mother knew that something radically different was required to launch the Crossland-X, however there were added complexities: Vauxhall were arriving late to the C-SUV party, and as a brand they had no credible relationship with women.

Mother’s bold, Mamas Uncut TV campaign aimed to redefine both the Vauxhall brand, and car marketing to Mums, but Vauxhall needed to take this campaign and tell some real and relatable stories in an equally bold way. Channel 4 was set up to be bold, different, and to stand out. We leveraged our unique standpoint with Vauxhall’s Mamas Uncut to create a launch campaign that truly cut through, and there was no better place to start than with our award winning comedy talent.

From Smack the Pony to Catastrophe, Channel 4 has always championed strong, funny, relatable women. Our genre defining comedy formats not only entertain millions but also look to challenge perceptions by using honesty & humour to show the world as it really is. For Mamas Uncut we worked through C4’s creative framework, PL4Y, and drafted in some of our best comedy writers to present the Crossland-X as a car rooted in reality and Vauxhall as a brand that genuinely understood Mums and could help make those daily journeys a little easier. Collaborating with C4’s real-life Mamas, award-winning comediennes Sally Phillips & Jessica Hynes, we united Mums everywhere in moments of collective as Sally & Jess shared stories pulled from the wealth of humour found in everyday motherhood, especially those during car journeys. Unscripted, honest, warm, and relatable. At the heart of these stories would be the Crossland-X.

Channel 4 is the home of bold, funny, relatable women, and we wanted to leverage this heritage of honest humour to create a campaign for the launch of our Crossland X that would genuinely resonate with Mum & reflect the funnier side of motherhood. The partnership did exactly what we’d asked, and because we made a true emotional connection with our key audience, we saw an exceptional spike in website traffic and leads of any recent Vauxhall car launch, as well as driving positive sentiment on social media. It’s a best in class piece of work and we’re hugely proud to have worked with Channel 4 that put car marketing to women to a new level. - Tamás Bátor, Head of Brand Communications, Vauxhall Motors Limited

Making it Happen

In-car WiFi and 360 rear view camera are not the most exciting things to talk to mums about, so we had to think very creatively about how we weaved these functions into an everyday conversation. Working with production partners, The Outfit, we prepped Sally & Jess on the broad topic areas we needed to reflect then set them free to chat and laugh about the highs & lows of family outings all whilst subtly weaving in the key benefits of the car.

We cut these conversations into several 30” & 10” spots wrapping them into mini-episodes we called “Mamas Uncut”, mirroring the same graphics & soundtrack from the main TVC so they appeared as both a seamless extension of the main campaign whilst also replicating the opening/closing credits of our C4 comedy formats. We launched the campaign with a bespoke C4/Vauxhall intro in key family show, The Crystal Maze, and then worked with Carat/TSL to create a carefully selected linear schedule that contextually placed the spots in our top converting HWKIDS programmes. We also extended our reach on All 4 with a complete takeover of the All 4 homepage on launch day alongside an interactive VOD format that delivering 2m impressions across 3 weeks & offered viewers the chance to find out more.

The Results

The day our partnership went live, 2 weeks after the main TVC, saw the biggest peak in leads that Vauxhall had seen via their website for any recent car launch.

Our copy reached over 12m Adults and almost 25% of that core HWKIDS audience across a 3 week period, showing how effective and contextual scheduling can maximise reach versus a relatively small budget. Mamas Uncut only ran for 3 weeks but in that time 25% of viewers felt much more positively towards Vauxhall & social media mentions were overwhelmingly warm. Qualitative research showed key take-outs were that Vauxhall genuinely understood how busy being a mum is, and was there to help - connecting emotionally against how category norms usually perform. A further 21% discussed the spot with their friends & family and consideration of the Crossland-X as their next family car rose by 23% - a serious feat from comedic ads!