Outdoor Recreation

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Textron Off Road

Once we had a release date, we knew we had a big challenge on our hands. Wildcat XX had seen its fair share of chatter online and we needed a launch plan that would whet the appetite of skeptics — and ultimately turn them into believers.&nbsp;Our plan? Get out the map and put everyone in charge of taking XX everywhere.

Our pre-launch microsite announced to the world XX had arrived — and it was ready to ride over everything. But with this audience, seeing is believing so we used email and social to promote our challenge and directed them to an immersive landing page where they could drop a pin where they wanted us to take it next. Little did they know, we weren’t just asking to be nice.&nbsp;

Revving Up Our Audience

When the time had come, every tactic in our campaign needed to shout the arrival of Wildcat XX. Display ads did their job with impressive imagery and dynamic animations.

A Launch That Was Loud and Clear

After we secretly took Wildcat XX to our audience's suggested destinations, we created a launch video that&nbsp;didn’t just announce that XX had arrived — it made clear everything it could do.

The Perfect Content Roadmap

What better place to tell the story of where XX had been than the social platforms where the conversation had begun? We responded directly to those who had suggested locations by tagging them in our posts and creating videos personalized just for them. One by one, we proved XX could rise to every challenge and ride over everything.

Challenge Accepted

After the official launch, our microsite transformed into a robust product showcase. The engineering feats giving Wildcat XX its superior ride were detailed in dynamic fashion, while engaging animations allowed users to get to know the vehicle inside and out.

XX Marks the Spot for Immersive Content

Extreme off roaders tend to be gearheads. And Textron Off Road was going up against industry titans with horsepower numbers that jumped off the spec sheet. To prove that there’s more to a great ride than horsepower, our microsite took our audience “Inside the Ride,” with a video series detailing how XX outperformed anything else.

To strengthen our case even further, we called in an expert and dug deeper than ever before. Our microsite included a video walk-around from off-road racing legend Robby Gordon that lent the vehicle’s engineering even more credibility. And a&nbsp;dedicated product video took the information typically found on a spec sheet, gave it context, and showed the Wildcat XX in all its glory.

Working across platforms, we took every possible route to move our audience to action — and print proved the perfect canvas for showcasing Wildcat XX in all its glory. Heroic photography reinforced the vehicle's capabilities, while our campaign mantra kept driving home the vehicle's advantages.

Any Terrain, Every Tactic

Our quest for total social feed domination continued with dedicated content, showing Wildcat XX conquering different obstacles while keeping the campaign's momentum going strong.

A product story this big needs room to breathe. Collateral provided the real estate to tell the full details of Wildcat XX and how it was unlike any side-by-side before it.

Driving our audience to dealers was the goal of our campaign. Once there, we created impactful point-of-sale materials to reinforce the selling points of Wildcat XX at every touchpoint.

We engaged the press with a dedicated event that showcased Textron sister brand Bell helicopter, provided VIP access to the storied King of the Hammers race and put editors through their paces on a purpose-built trail riding experience that showed off XX’s unique capabilities. This hands-on experience no doubt contributed to XX winning UTV of the Year honors from UTV Action and ATV.com.

Putting Media Behind the Wheel

When you combine a game-changing product with the hard work of Swanson Russell, you can truly Ride Over Everything. Silencing skeptics and proving itself well worth the wait, the Wildcat XX posted the highest first-three-month retail success rate of any launch in the brand’s history. With such a robust campaign, there are dozens of data points that could be used to show its success including:

This is What You Call a Victory Lap

Microsite Engagement Range

Email Recipients Noted High Interest in Purchase

Separate Articles Written as a Result of PR Efforts

Anti-Indoor

One-Boat Challenge

Advertising

Architecture

Audience Identity

Content

Data & Analytics

Email Marketing

Endemic Media

Identity

Influencer Marketing

Mobile

Motion Studio

Positioning

Product Launch

Programmatic Media

Public Relations

SEO/SEM

Social Media

UX/UI

Websites

Construction

Branding

Walls Outdoor Goods

The sterile fluorescent lighting. The claustrophobia. The boredom. To make Walls a hero, we turned the indoors into a villain, painting it as oppressive, limiting and draining. In contrast, we positioned Walls as liberators, who supply professional tradesmen with gear built for outdoor work. Our social campaign used bold, quick-hitting headlines over powerful outdoor imagery, in disruptive placements like Facebook carousels and Instagram Stories.&nbsp;

Outside or Die

Campaign materials used tell-it-like-it-is language paired with rugged, in-the-field imagery that proved our gear could walk the walk. A relentless digital campaign of display and pre-roll video ads was rolled out, tested and refined continually. Outdoor executions were a natural place to carry out the new brand, and in-store executions were bold and attention-getting, giving retailers a way to catch attention while reinforcing the campaign with our audience.&nbsp;

Work Outside the Box

A robust digital display campaign with weather-triggered ads helped reinforce the campaign online.&nbsp;

You can’t have an Anti-Indoor brand that doesn’t play well on outdoor media. These bold placements put Walls right where it’s most comfortable: in the elements. And even in cozy retail environments, we helped the audience imagine themselves outdoors in Walls gear.&nbsp;

Standing Up to Mother Nature

More detailed videos put high-priority products front and center and demonstrated how they stood up to the elements.

Working Over Time

Email was used to provide message versatility that we delivered right to our audience’s inbox.&nbsp;

Finishing the Job

This campaign works as hard as its target audience, and the results prove it. Before we rallied against the indoors, Walls had single-digit unaided awareness. Our campaign moved almost half of the audience into highly considering them for their next purchase. We like to call that a job well done. Research showed that, among our target audience:&nbsp;

Pulling a Brand Up by the Bootstraps

viewed Walls as a unique brand, helping it stand out against entrenched players.

said Walls was either “Definitely” or “Probably” for someone like them, meaning we’d connected in a relevant way with our Anti-Indoor message.

would either “Definitely” or “Probably” buy Walls.

E-Comm Overhaul

Walls® Outdoor Goods makes the gear that our nation’s unsung heroes and hardest workers need, from insulated coveralls to weather-resistant work jackets. The problem? Their competitors do, too. And their pockets are deep (not to mention well-constructed and fleece-lined).&nbsp;Up against those behemoths, Walls’ unaided brand awareness didn’t crack double digits. But on the plus side, their younger audience segment was less brand loyal, and willing to try something new if it came from a brand that understood them and what kind of gear they needed.&nbsp;

Challenge

To find an edge for Walls, Swanson Russell took a hard look at their target audience and how other brands were speaking to them. Everyone else was selling “tough gear for tough guys,” so we dug deeper into that sentiment. We found that these professional tradesmen aren’t just tough enough to work outside — they’re wired to do so. They believe in a life lived outdoors, and view desk jobs as death sentences.&nbsp;

Solution

Off road drivers are one of the most passionate and demanding user groups around. They geek out on performance specs and live to put their machines to the test when it’s time to ride. For years, the eagerly awaited Wildcat XX was the subject of constant questions on social media and message boards. Some doubted that the “unicorn” of rumored off-road vehicles would ever see the light of day.&nbsp;

When it was finally ready to launch, we wanted every serious rider to know that the Wildcat XX was worth the wait. We didn’t just announce that it had arrived, we called out the doubters and showed them where it had been: putting the most advanced suspension system in the industry to the test in the most extreme environments. It’s a ride that’s built to conquer anything, for extreme drivers who put Ride Over Everything.&nbsp;