‘We must remember creative’ – Citroen’s marketing boss

2019 is set to be Citroen’s 100 anniversary, and it’s probably a good time to appreciate just how important this company regards branding and creativity in general.

Speaking to Marketing Week, its senior vice president of global marketing communications, Arnaud Belloni, outlined the three key pillars for its 100th birthday marketing campaign.

First, is playing up its iconic status. Second, is ensuring that it is future-looking. Third, is harnessing the power of social media.

Belloni is clear that whether it is social media or TV, “creativity is key”. He adds, “this is exactly where a lot of brands are failing…we must remember creative…if our job is only metrics and sales, this is not the same job.”

But of course, the brand does carry out extensive testing on social media listening and pre- and post-testing of its campaign films.

Nonetheless, the company does remain wary of relying too heavily on creating campaigns that hit certain KPIs.

Belloni does say that the automotive market these days requires content marketers to produce a massive amount of material.

“If I take the example of comfort. I need to explain comfort on Facebook, Instagram, my website, to journalists and so on, and for each item I don’t use the same concept…on Instagram I will be much more artistic, on Facebook much more emotional…it’s a massive portfolio of content,” he added.

He feels that storytelling is integral in terms of changing the marketing fit to the consumer.

Nonetheless, its always about balancing speed and quality in advertising as well.

For example, Belloni was tasked with overhauling the marketing production process to ensure the 10 campaigns it needed for 2019 were produced in six months.

All the briefs were given a year ago, with creatives done in June, July and August, a pre-test in September and shot in October and November.

“All the movies are different but they were shot all in the same time, with the same production team and one director to reduce cost considerably,” he explained.

According to Belloni, this approach has had no negative impact on the quality and the same strategy will be employed for 2020 campaigns soon.