Iowa Corn, the state association for our local corn production industry, worked to create a campaign to show the benefits of E-15. This project would provide several benefits to the state — an economic boost for corn farmers, a lower-cost fuel for consumers and a cleaner fuel option to protect the environment.

 

The Problem

 

For years, there was either Unleaded (E-0), Super Unleaded (E-10) or E-85 for flex fuel vehicles. That was until E-15 came along. According to the EPA, E-15 is safe for use in any 2001 or newer vehicles. The newer 15 percent ethanol blend is better for the environment than standard gasoline and more economical for the consumer. Consumers needed to be educated and aware of this “new” fuel available to them at the pump.

 

Our challenge was to create an attention-grabbing educational awareness campaign that showed all the benefits of E-15. This campaign needed to be in a format that would be ubiquitous across different social and traditional broadcast media channels with a specified target audience comprising general consumers ages 18 to 65. We were also tasked with building a registration list of at least 500 people for American Ethanol gift certificates as part of the E-15 promotion.

 

The Solution

 

Strategically, we wanted the campaign to be lighthearted, informative and catchy. Since E-10 is more commonly referred to as “super unleaded” at the pump, we thought why not use this same thinking for E-15? Thus, the “super duper” unleaded campaign was born. We took this phrase and built out an animated video with a whimsical jingle that touches on the benefits of E-15 fuel and deployed it across different platforms — the Iowa Corn website, YouTube, social media accounts and traditional radio and digital ads.

 

The Results

 

The Super Duper Unleaded video campaign was extremely cost-efficient and effective in reaching our target audience. With more than 194,000 impressions, the cost-per-impression was less than $0.01 and with more than 41,000 video views, the cost-per-view was $0.07. A call-to-action button encouraging viewers to learn more after completing the video netted 248 direct visitors to a landing page on the Iowa Corn website. By the campaign’s end, we netted 822 sign-ups for the American Ethanol gift certificate giveaway, almost doubling the number in our initial goal. Of total visitors to the web page specifically designated for the program, 20 percent were converted into signups for the giveaway. In all, Iowa Corn website traffic increased almost 7 percent during the Super Duper Unleaded campaign.