smart Car teaser campaign sees partnerships with Nedbank and Budget-Rent-a-Car

smart move for Nedbank
Nedbank's Vehicle Financing division will attract a lot more attention from 27 January when ten of the smallest - and cutest - cars on South Africa's roads will start popping up all over the place, unmistakably adorned in Nedbank's corporate colours.

Nedbank acquired the ten smart cabrio & passion cars to complement Nedbank's brand awareness, and will primarily be used as an incentive to encourage top performance by the Nedbank Retail Banking Division's staff.

The ten smarts were handed over to the Senior Manager of Nedbank Motor Industry Relations, Alan Shannon, at a ceremony at DaimlerChrysler's (DCSA) head office on Friday, 24 January as a further step in DCSA's extraordinary teaser campaign building up to smart's South African launch in July 2003.

"Although the concept of a teaser campaign is not unfamiliar to the South African motor industry, never before has any manufacturer embarked on a teaser campaign for a period of 9 months," said Fritz van Olst, Management Board Member for Sales & Marketing at DCSA. "We are confident that by the time the campaign ends in July 2003 we would have achieved our other objective of building up a substantial order book for smart prior to its retail launch."

According to Fritz Van Olst, DCSA conceptualised three means of achieving its objectives during the teaser period. "Firstly smart was made available as rental cars exclusively through Budget Rent a Car; secondly a number of smarts are being made available as promotional vehicles to high-profile companies; and thirdly smarts are being used as service courtesy cars through selected Mercedes-Benz workshops," Fritz Van Olst said. "All three methods address the right target market, offers an extended test drive and ensure that vehicles will be seen on the roads in the major metropolitan areas."

smart is approaching a limited number of companies with the aim of offering smart as promotional vehicles in these selected fleets. It is important to ensure that the products and brands of these companies will complement the premium positioning of smart, and vice versa, and smart firmly believes that the association with Nedbank achieves exactly this. smart, with its unique shape and design, turns heads and attracts unbelievable attention in the traffic. The potential of smart as a promotional vehicle/'moving billboard' is thus endless. By aligning two premium brands such as Nedbank and smart can only result in a win-win promotional opportunity for both brands.

Exclusive partnership with Budget-Rent-a-Car

An exclusive pre-launch partnership was also entered into with Budget-Rent-A-Car. The rental vehicles are only available in the major metro areas, namely Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban. Budget Rent a Car provides several unique channels to reach the South African public and thus the smart-specific target markets. During this period, through the rental partnership with Budget, a large number of people will be able to experience smart, and potential customers will have the unique opportunity to test drive the smart for a lengthy period of time.

Service courtesy cars through selected Mercedes-Benz workshops

A select group of Mercedes-Benz service outlets in Gauteng, Durban and Cape Town are participating in the smart teaser campaign. In order to offer the Mercedes-Benz workshop customer added value to the service of his/her Mercedes, a limited number of smart vehicles have been made available for this purpose. smart service courtesy vehicles are offered on a first come, first served basis in these selected service outlets.