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Valeo's "Men in Black" Capture a Gold Advertising Award For Their Car Blind-Spot Safety Promotion
February 18, 2004
At
the Top Com annual awards ceremony earlier this month in Paris,
automotive supplier Valeo accepted a Gold award for its creative
promotional concept based on "Men in Black" to increase
awareness of the dangers of the blind spot zone on cars. Valeo won the
Grand Prix award in the Business to Business promotion category in the
marketing section. Top
Com, an annual French media congress, presented the Gold award to
Valeo's media relations, marketing communication and event teams and to
Alan Le Breton, business development manager of Event & Vente, a
Paris-based events agency specializing in comedy campaigns. The
Grand Prix awards honor campaigns that have excelled on a number of
criteria, including the complexity of the subject, creativity and
originality and above all its results. An
independent jury of more than 35 advertising and communications experts
evaluated over 2,500 entries for the 2004 Top Com awards. At the
presentation, the jury highlighted the creativity behind Valeo's blind
spot detection campaign. "The subject is very complex," said
Françoise Sampermans, a member of the jury, "but you managed to
make it easy to understand through the Men in Black act, which also
employs humor." Valeo
worked with Event & Vente to generate a promotional event that would
make carmakers aware of Valeo's technology to eliminate the dangerous
blind spot in cars. Valeo had developed its radar-based blind spot
detection systems with Raytheon, and wanted to present it with panache
at the Frankfurt motor show in September last year. The
award-winning event is inspired by the film "Men in Black."
The two characters are a "Man in Black" who is out to destroy
an attractive female alien with green hair, green make up and a green
miniskirt that echo Valeo's corporate colors. The Man is warning the
audience that the blind spot is dangerous because you cannot see it when
the alien suddenly appears and runs wildly around the stage. The
demonstration ends on a moral note that the danger zone of the blind
spot must be detected at all times, and at this point the show is handed
over to the technical experts to demonstrate the technology. The scene
was shown to Valeo's customers and international journalists. "What
we call scenario marketing consists in making a message human to create
an emotional bond with the public," commented Alan Le Breton,
business development manager at Event & Vente. By using cultural
references like the film "Men in Black" to develop the
scenario, he said, the audience finds a familiar link, and the comedian
is a human connection that makes the brand more accessible. He added,
"This Top Com award is very encouraging as it confirms that an
advertiser like Valeo, whose image is based on precision and
professionalism, can use scenario marketing without departing from its
communications policy." The
Valeo system uses one radar sensor on each side of the vehicle to
continuously monitor the blind spot. If an overtaking vehicle appears in
the monitored area, an icon in the door mirror alerts the driver. In
2002, more than one accident in ten on German roads was due to driver
errors in overtaking, changing direction, moving off or joining a stream
of traffic, so blind spot detection could ultimately lead to a drop in
the number of accidents. The
Men in Black act appeared on several key German television programs that
covered the motor show, and more than 100 hundred articles on the blind
spot detection system appeared in print media, including the leading
German publications FAZ and Wirtschaftswoche. Valeo is an independent industrial group fully focused on the design, production and sale of components, integrated systems and modules for cars and trucks. Valeo ranks among the world's top automotive suppliers. The Group has 129 plants, 65 R&D centers, 9 distribution centers and employs 68,200 people in 26 countries worldwide.
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