Campaign Trail is our evaluation of a few of the very best latest creative efforts from the marketing world. View past columns within the archives here.
Around the globe, 2024 is already proving to be a 12 months of political upheaval, a mood captured by the shocking results of this month’s snap election in France. The rejection of the far-right National Rally party has inspired some headline writers to pun on the French Revolution — a theme that continues to be resonant in France and beyond.
For proof of the historical event’s durability, look no further than Citroën’s campaign for its latest, fully-electric ë-C3 that debuted earlier this summer. In a hero spot, a gaggle of noblemen in 18th century style — think powdered wigs and full make-up — attend a garden party at a chateau, having fun with hunks of cake and games of badminton.
That is until a crew of proletarian thieves descend the chateau’s partitions, liberating a fleet of hatchbacks as they’re pursued on horseback. Despite the aristocrats’ attempts to stop them using a spread of sporting equipment, the gang is capable of escape, crashing through cakes and locking the gates behind themselves. “Electric isn’t any longer for the elite,” reads a title card.
Citroën bills the ë-C3 as the primary fully-electric, well-equipped, made-in-Europe automobile, one which costs, at 23,300 euros (about $25,000), about as much as a standard, internal combustion engine (ICE) automobile. The Stellantis-owned automaker wanted a campaign with the dimensions befitting its victory within the “space race” for such an option — not only a product-focused ad.
“We need a story, something cultural, something high impact, something that may stop peoples’ thumbs once they see it on social media. I need to face out within the within the ad break,” said Federico Goyret, senior vp of world marketing and communications at Citroën.
Citroën also desired to be faithful to its tradition of creative excellence, a heritage that began a century ago, when the brand’s name lit up the Eiffel Tower for nearly a decade.
“I needed something that completely stood out of the box, and as a client, we were willing to take all of the risks that you’ve gotten to take,” Goyret said.
French style
Paris-based agency BETC saw a campaign around Citroën’s ë-C3 as a possibility to take a giant swing on a product that’s difficult the establishment of the industry by providing an inexpensive option for European car-buyers who’re otherwise priced out of the electric automobile market or forced to depend on ICE cars that might eventually be banned in Europe all together.
“[The campaign] looks on the market from a consumer perspective: Why is that this thing that everybody wants me to purchase so unaffordable? Well it now not is,” said Mehdi Benali, managing director at BETC. “This product is doing what it does within the promoting, which is it’s breaking stuff out of the elite’s world and giving it to the masses in a really stylish, elegant, French way.”
The brand and agency have worked to position Citroën as a world brand — not only a French one — but embraced the chance to tie the ë-C3 to French history and the revolutionary vision of founder André Citroën, often described because the Henry Ford of Europe. But spoofing the French Revolution needed to be done in a way that fit the brand’s identity.
“You take any event in history and put a Citroën filter on it, all the things has this daring, audacious extravagant tone added to it,” Benali said.
Cinematic ambition
The resulting campaign spot feels less “Masterpiece Theater” and more “Marie Antoinette,” especially since a few of the wigs and costumes that were utilized in Sofia Coppola’s film were flown in from Austria for the industrial shoot. The anachronistic quality that comes from mixing 18th century style with twenty first century automobiles was a part of the “crazy world” imagined by director Frederik Bond. To bring all of it together, the ad is soundtracked by a twentieth century classic: David Bowie’s “Suffragette City.”
“That was the primary [track] that we tried, after which we tried a dozen others and none of them felt anywhere near nearly as good as this one,” Benali said of the song selection. “It has that rock’n’roll, almost punk spirit of: ‘We are here to interrupt things in an industry that hasn’t challenged that establishment for one million years.’”
The nostalgic favorite also allowed Citroën to raised connect with its audience, which has a median age around 45, with about 35% of buyers over 50. All together, the 80-second spot brings cinematic ambition to a category whose ads are sometimes marked by the compact reliability of the small-sized hatchbacks themselves.
“It’s the launch of the ë-C3, nevertheless it’s, to a certain extent, the revolution of Citroën,” Benali said. “It deserved that cinematographic feel that goes above and beyond what is often in promoting.”
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