SYLVANIA AUTOMOTIVE – Talking Monkey

christian sternal

creative director | copywriter

They make some of the highest quality automotive lighting products on earth. And totally dominate the category. 92% market share in the US and 80% in Canada. Increasing market share wasn’t our biggest challenge. Getting people to do something they never ever do—think about headlights—that was the challenge. We needed to turn indifference into awareness. Teach people how to achieve even greater clarity and down road visibility by upgrading their older, dimmer bulbs to fresh, brighter ones. And Think Farther Down the Road.

Welcome to the Proving Grounds

The goal was to turn the brand into the de facto resource for automotive lighting and nighttime driving expertise. Only problem, people don’t care, at all, about how their headlights work—until they don’t work. So we needed to crank up the stopping power by creating the Proving Grounds. A highly stylized, slightly surreal world where we create content that entertains, demonstrates and educates.

The campaign launched with a two brand commercials that helped define the look and feel for the work moving forward.

Think Farther Down the Road

The Launch Commercials [Expand]

The team crushed it with these spots called “Dark Roads”and “Wow,” respectively. But there was a lot of work to go around, so I crashed the party to write and oversee a metric ton of the video and campaign content that followed.

Clean, Consistent, On-Brand

Even before the new brand spots launched, we’d prioritized laying a simple, stylish foundation to wrap around the updated voice. And then we stuck to it. Professional, smart, reliable, built with guardrails and ready to work with just about any consumer-facing messaging.

ADDY - Silver

ADDY, OC
Silver
Film, Video, & Sound – Internet Commercial Campaign
2020

"Lightbulb Moments" Video Content

With the campaign in full swing, we needed massive amounts of entertaining, relevant, educational content. For social and digital, we began by extending the brand’s library of illuminating demo, tips and how-to videos, many of which utilized our main character in his natural habitat—a lab office deep in the bowels of the Proving Grounds.

Recognize The Spokesman?

His name is David Dalton. He’s hilarious and has a mind like a steel trap. About a year after he helped us with this work for Sylvania he became the Philadelphia Cream Cheese “Schmelier.”

Illuminating Print

We were presented with a last-minute opportunity to put some print together for the MLB World Series programs, so we pounced on it. Of course we only had about a day to put something together, but we made do. And then won an ADDY for it. Good times.

ADDY - Silver

ADDY, OC
Silver
Print Advertising – Magazine Advertising – Full Page or Less – Single Unit
2020

ADDY - Silver

ADDY, OC
Silver
Cross Platform – Consumer Campaign – Regional/National
2020

ADDY - Silver

ADDY, OC
Silver
Film, Video, & Sound – Television Advertising – Television-National Campaign
2020

Proving Grounds: Headlight Savings Time

With the brand foundation intact and running smoothly, it was time to explore some new, relevant and ownable ways to get the message out there. We decided to turn a somewhat annoying semi-annual event, Daylight Savings Time, into an opportunity to show everyone how to drive smarter and safer during “the darkest time of the year.”

#headlightssavingstime

ADDY - Silver

ADDY, OC
Silver
Online/Interactive – Websites – Consumer
2020

HST Landing

We made sure consumers had a nice place to go, go get more than they asked for. A clean, crisp, engaging page full of education, demos, storytelling and, of course, links to find and purchase.

Portraits by Headlight

The campaign portrait content was actually lit by highlights. Something we wanted to do right from the start. Turned out to be a beautiful way to encourage people to focus on what matters most.

High-Quality Work...High-Quality Results

Strategy, media, broadcast, web, video content, digital, in-store, social channel content and management—all of it consistently delivered. Especially across social where engagement rates were 3x the industry standard and CTRs were between .21 and 1.24%, depending on objective.

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