THE CHALLENGE
To help Freightliner forge a comprehensive brand strategy that demonstrates its commitment to quality, performance and service as the answer to the difficult economics of operating a trucking business.
THE APPROACH
HMH conducted extensive customer research and heard one message loud and clear: Operating a truck at a profit is a challenge today. And it's not likely to get any easier in the future. Whether you are a fleet owner, an owner-operator or owner of vocational trucks, you demand that your truck be an efficient business solution. HMH developed a new tagline, "Run Smart," that expresses the brand position in a concise, compelling way across all of Freightliner's customer groups.
THE WORK
HMH created an integrated communications campaign that was launched from the inside out. We started by introducing the positioning and campaign to Freightliner employees with an orchestrated series of meetings, events and gifts so everyone understood where the company is headed. Then we rolled the campaign out to the Freightliner dealer body with a comprehensive dealer kit and showroom point-of-sale materials. Finally, the campaign broke with print, radio, interactive and truck stop advertising to key customer audiences. An emotional all-copy, manifesto ad introduced the new tagline, followed by a series of product ads.
THE RESULTS
The new brand strategy and the "Run Smart" marketing communications created to launch it generated a renewed sense of pride and ownership among internal audiences and dealers, and has received a lot of attention across the trucking industry. Testing after less than a year showed unaided awareness of the new "Run Smart" tagline was almost 20%, besting all competitors except two whose taglines have existed for 20 and 16 years. Freightliner Trucks sales have increased 15% since the campaign's launch.
