Integrated Google Campaigns – Plug’n Drive
Plug’n Drive is a non-profit organization established in 2011 to inform the public about the benefits of EV’s and accelerate their adoption in Ontario. In 2016, Up Marketing was put in the driver’s seat of the marketing campaign that launched the world’s first Electric Vehicle Discovery Centre.
In September 2016, we started building up the foundation of public awareness by securing Plug’n Drive a Google Ad Grant through Google For Nonprofits. With it, we launched a Search campaign with six primary communications goals
- Educate the public about the EV value proposition
- Help establish Plug’n Drive as a go-to unbiased EV authority
- Drive awareness of and traffic to Plug’n Drive events
- Support charging station sales
- Grow EV sales across Ontario by building recognition of all EV brands and bringing test drivers to showrooms and events
- Advertise the Provincial Government’s rebates of up to $15,000 s for EVs and charging stations
We kicked off Plug’n Drive’s online campaign in our Clean50 Special Report in November in the Globe and Mail, for which Up Marketing’s creative team developed editorial to dispel EV myths, promote awareness of the EV value proposition and support Plug’n Drive’s Home Charger sales. Animated digital ads were developed to run on the Globe’s site with the online Clean50 Report material and drive traffic to Plug’n Drive’s website throughout December. Our Clean50 editorial on the Globe’s site was then linked directly into the Google Search campaign, where it continues to get exposure today.
In January, we began planning the transition from the promotion of Plug’n Drive as as our best EV information resource to the introduction of the world’s first Electric Vehicle Discovery Centre. Our campaign drove traffic to Plug’n Drive’s installation at the Canadian Auto Show’s inaugural Electric Avenue and to the Green Car Test Drive at the Green Living Show. Dynamic Search ads inviting auto-shoppers to compare EVs with non-EV options performed exceptionally well along with ads based on other key message points.
To support the announcement of the Centre, we produced HTML5 ads to run on news and automotive websites in a Google Display campaign wit content based on Plug’n Drives survey results and bidding adjusted to the searchers’ distance from the Centre. We introduced an array of ad themes, call-outs and sitelink extensions to our Google Search campaign, while maintaining a communications focus on Plug’n Drive as the best source of information about EV technology, vehicle range and specifications and government rebates and incentives.
Plug’n Drive is a non-profit organization established in 2011 to inform the public about the benefits of EV’s and accelerate their adoption in Ontario.
