Innovative short stories created traffic for Mazda

The best conversations happen in the car. Mazda's collaboration with Mindshare and Aller Concept Store proved that.

- "The overall goal was to create awareness, attention, interest and purchase intention for the new Mazda CX 30," says Josephine Messa, Strategic Group Account Manager at Aller Media.

- But in addition, we wanted to generate traffic to the website and to the retailer.

744,000 potential Mazda buyers

- In Aller's digital universe, we meet 743,950 unique people every week who say they either want to buy or are considering buying a Mazda.

To create the good feeling that would trigger readers' interest, Aller Concept Store created the concept of brand novellas. In these stories, the Mazda CX 30 does not play the main role, but provides the framework and sets the mood for the really good conversations.

The good warm feeling

Content Manager at Aller Concept Store, Asbjørn Halvorsen, elaborates:

- The car is a fantastic arena to talk to others. Everyone has had an important, exciting or funny conversation in a car at some point. There's something special about gliding through a landscape while talking - you're in motion while stretching your mind and communicating," says Asbjørn.

- A road trip is a wonderful opportunity for interaction with other people. We wanted to create that feeling - the anticipation - in our readers.

Three specially written short stories take the reader through a beautiful winter landscape and close to unique human destinies.

See the articles here:

1. Space for life
2. Road trip with my dad
3. An unexpected gift

469 hours

The short stories, which were presented in content placements, were run in combination with both full-screen and bumper ads.

Traffic stood out. Aller readers spent 469 hours on the content, and over 38 percent of Aller readers have taken an action on Mazda's website.

In addition, 58% of those who read the short stories said they liked the content, and 43% said the stories made them feel good.

- Mazda and Mindshare dared to step outside the box and invest in a completely new type of storytelling from Aller Concept Store, says Josephine Messa

- They got good credit for that!

"We are very pleased with the collaboration and how the short stories turned out, not least how they appeared visually. Aller managed to create a good reader experience that brought out the car in a nice and natural way. The figures show that the traffic from the stories was of high quality and resulted in a high proportion of conversions far down the funnel, so there are many indications that the stories have also contributed to getting new Mazda cars on Norwegian roads."

Vegar Angelo, Strategy Director at Mindshare