ADAC – Don't Call Mom
How do you make an automobile club attractive for a young target group without a car?
The Challenge
The ADAC is successful with over 20 million members. However, Europe’s largest automobile club faces the challenge of attracting young people, who nowadays mainly travel without their own car. So how do you make an automobile club attractive for a young target group without a car?
The Solution
With a new service that is always available on Whatsapp and positions the ADAC as a digital mobility partner at eye level.
Replacing Mom for a whole generation
Together with RCKT, the ADAC launched its first purely digital campaign “Don’t Call Mom – Call ADAC” in the summer of 2017. The core of the integrated concept was the WhatsApp hotline, in which a team of community managers answered every question from the young target group. From Meme-Battles to good advice in cases of lovesickness – the ADAC was there. In just six weeks, we exchanged over 140,000 messages with the community. Europe’s largest automobile club became the Mom-replacement for a whole generation and “Don’t Call Mom” became the most successful ADAC campaign ever.
Give your parents a break
The campaign surprised above all with its courageous tonality. The spots show in an entertaining way that parents have better things to do than to answer their children’s “urgent” messages. They were shared ten thousand times and the new WhatsApp service was tested and discussed in various media. Charming side effect: parents, the ADAC’s core target group, could also smile about the campaign and recommend the service to their children. We played out the campaign in an integrated way via online ads, influencer marketing and festivals. In addition to a total of around 20 million contacts, the campaign also received a bronze lion in Cannes.
Don’t Travel with Mom
The second round of the campaign followed in spring 2018, this time focusing on a concrete ADAC service: traveling. Together with the ADAC travel experts, our WhatsApp team helped young people plan their next trip. Short films and Instagram-Story-Ads under the slogan “Don’t Travel with Mom” did not spare the young target group the embarrassment of a family holiday with their parents. Yes, it is indeed “time to travel alone and 12.5 million contacts saw it the same way. The Instagram Stories shot with a smartphone were awarded the “Goldene Klappe” in 2019.
