Competitive couple to front Buick ads

<P>BatesAsia has developed a lifestyle-oriented campaign for Shanghai General Motors' Excelle HRV model, featuring a young couple trying to outwit each other to drive the car. </P> <P>TV, print and radio executions using the tagline 'Who is going to drive the car today?' focus more on the couple than the car in a bid to identify with the lives of its target 25- to 35- year-old audience. </P> <P>The HRV makes a relatively late appearance in the TVC, and even then it is when the man gets into his neighbour's car, also an HRV, by mistake, keeping the attention fixed on the interplay between the couple rather than the car.</P> <P>The marque also moves backstage in the print executions, with either the man or the woman in the foreground holding up pictures showing what they did that day, while radio ads feature dialogues between the pair that turn out to be thinly veiled attempts to become the car's driver.</P> <P>BatesAsia's regional ECD Norman Tan said the HRV was aimed at up and coming Chinese who aspire to an active and free lifestyle. </P> <P>"When we were developing the campaign we needed to get the message across in the right way, and that meant speaking their language," he said.</P> <P>The marketing push, due to kick off on August 9, marks a new approach for the HRV which launched just under two years ago on the back of a successful campaign, also created by Bates Asia, starring a shop dummy that came alive so it could drive the car.</P>