Objective

How do you convince consumers of the superiority of Shell’s premium fuel over its competitors when marketing around its performance benefits fails to resonate with your audience?

That was the challenge faced by Shell’s premium fuel offering, Shell V-Power. Many people consider premium fuel worth the extra cost, but they also believe that all premium fuel brands are the same. Research showed that differentiation based on rational claims about the fuel’s impact on performance did not provide the emotional connection to Shell V-Power needed to change purchase behaviour.

For over 75 years, Shell has been an innovation partner for Scuderia Ferrari HP’s Formula 1 team, a brand that generates immense global engagement. Shell and Ferrari scientists develop the fuel that powers Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton’s cars, and the fuel at forecourt pumps was essentially the same as the race fuel that the drivers use. Shell focused on leveraging its partnership with Ferrari’s F1 team to increase engagement with its target audience.

Strategy

Using the insight that personalised experiences are proven to create deeper emotional brand engagement, and using AI to deliver personalised content at scale, the ‘Feel Closer’ campaign was created. A first-of-its-kind execution, the campaign allowed fans to feel the excitement of a personalised VIP experience in the super-exclusive environment of the F1 Pit Garage of the F1 team. The campaign’s strategic approach was to create meaningful connections between fans, the team and the emotional engagement with the brand that had been missing previously by using AI innovation.

The creative was specifically designed to ensure a truly intimate, original and immersive experience; a direct-to-camera filming approach was used with the camera placed in the viewer’s eyes, making our audience literally feel closer. The personalisation of the film was made possible through a magical combination of shoot production, AFX and AI. Everything was captured to fit the AFX and AI requirements, including voice recordings speaking multiple names and tonal variations of the script to train the AI tool.  Props featured in the film, such as a VIP pass and headphones, were tracked for post-production, then AFX placed the naming capability into the visuals and a sound file calling out viewers' names was isolated. 

By feeding this content into a proprietary AI video tool we delivered a unique creative experience.  On entering the Scuderia Ferrari HP Pit Garage, each guest was greeted personally, welcomed by Charles and Lewis and given their own personalised VIP access lanyard and headphones. Next, guests moved into the garage, allowing them to watch the drivers’ preparation for the race and granting them access to restricted areas to see the different technicians' final checks. The enviable experience finished with a sign-off from the drivers and Lewis personally handing over the guest’s lanyard.  The creative treatment continued across campaign elements, including the drivers using a ‘knock knock’ to the camera screen to encourage social audiences to literally stop scrolling.

Results

The campaign delivered exceptional results across 70+ markets that exceeded industry benchmarks, despite a relatively low media spend. This clearly demonstrated the power of quality creative work coupled with AI-driven personalisation to create impact. In a period of just over three months, the following results were achieved.

• 672,814 personalised films were created, 211,132 of which were shared from 2,242,083 page visits
• The Shell Motorsport social channel campaign posts received 106,796,084 views, and a reach of 30,906,604, a 50 x higher reach than non-campaign posts during the same period
• The campaign activity accounted for 80% of total engagements in the channel during the campaign period; 717,462 engagements were recorded, including 671,013 likes, and over 45,000 new followers joined the channel in just one month
• Charles Leclerc loved the work and reshared it with his 21.9 million followers, generating over 98 million engagements
• The paid media budget performed 5 x better than benchmarked average, driving 68,785,074 impressions and nearly 1 million clicks to the client website  
• The impact on sales was significant; during the Feel Closer campaign, Shell V-Power B2C volume grew by 2% (vs plan and previous year), with margin up 13% vs plan and 8% vs previous year 

With a reach of multiple millions, and engagements and film creations in the hundreds of thousands, the campaign successfully achieved its objective. Shell V-Power was seen as distinct from its premium fuel competitors, creating a memorable, truly personalised digital AI experience that strengthened emotional connections and improved sales.

Media