Agency: Team Detroit
Client: Ford Motor Company
Drive One 4 UR School was a series of one-day test-drive events held at local high schools nationwide to help fund school sports while building the Ford brand. For each test drive completed on event day, Ford donated $20 to the high school booster club, up to $6,000. Schools had an opportunity to earn up to an additional $6,000 by participating in a Student Video Contest. Participants also could enter to win additional prizes, such as a Gateway LT20 Netbook.
High schools and dealers received a pre-event instruction kit, including guidelines, event best practices, PR support information, timelines and sample event-day agendas. Dealers received promotional items such as banners, posters, window clings and floor graphics and had help from a program headquarters team and the website driveone4urschool.com. PR efforts helped seed buzz for each event.
All totaled, Ford dealers nationwide hosted 819 events between December 2007 and November 2009. They were attended by roughly 125,000 participants who conducted more than 115,700 test drives and generated more than $2.6 million for high school activities all across the country.
Sixty-eight percent of participants did not currently own a Ford and favorable opinions of Ford jumped from 65% before their experience to 82% after their test drive. At the conclusion of the 120-day sales window for each event, Drive One 4 UR School had a 1.48% buy rate, the highest of any Ford, Lincoln or Mercury test-drive program.
