Outsell and Saatchi & Saatchi’s Toyota Campaign Wins Silver Stevie® Award In 2014 Stevie Awards For Sales & Customer Service

The 2013 Toyota RAV4 Launch Campaign Wins Another Prestigious Industry Award

Outsell, with agency partner Saatchi & Saatchi, has won a Silver Stevie® Award in the eighth annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. The 2013 Toyota RAV4 Launch Campaign won the award in the Outbound Marketing Program of the Year category.

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are the world’s top sales awards, contact center awards, and customer service awards. The Stevie Awards organizes several of the world’s leading business awards shows including the prestigious American Business AwardsSM and International Business AwardsSM. The awards were presented to honorees during a gala banquet on February 21 in Las Vegas. More than 400 nominated customer service and sales executives from the U.S.A. and several other countries attended.

More than 1,500 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were evaluated in this year’s competition, an increase of 36% over 2013. Finalists were determined by average scores of 129 professionals worldwide, acting as preliminary judges. More than 260 executives around the world participated in the judging process for the 2014 awards, to determine the Finalists and then the Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Award placements.

“We are thrilled to see the Toyota campaign recognized with another industry award. This was a joint effort by the talented teams at Saatchi & Saatchi and Outsell, and we congratulate everyone again that was involved,” said Mike Wethington, President & CEO, Outsell LLC. “The well-executed campaign proved to be successful for Toyota North America and a model example of cross-channel digital marketing as a powerful method for a brand to increase consumer awareness and drive sales.”

2013 Toyota RAV4 Launch Campaign
The all-new 2013 Toyota RAV4 was about to launch and Saatchi & Saatchi and Outsell were tasked to create awareness, encourage test drives and drive sales for the 164 participating Toyota dealers across North America. For several months prior to the launch, RAV4 teaser emails were sent via each dealer’s sales database in order to gather behavioral data and measure RAV4 interest. The subsequent launch campaign consisted of 3 main elements:

• Targeted initial email – an introductory email was meant to spread awareness and send traffic to the RAV4 microsite.

• Custom RAV4 microsite – consumers could review valuable RAV4 content and were encouraged to schedule a test-drive and browse the dealer’s inventory.

• Targeted follow-up email – was sent to the consumers who engaged in the initial email or visited the microsite.

The overall goal was to create a dialog with interested consumers and close the deal on a new RAV4. The results were impressive: over 56,000 consumers interacted with the RAV4 launch emails/microsite, generating approximately $6.1 million in RAV4 sales revenue for the participating dealers.* To view examples of the award-winning campaign emails and microsite, please visit: http://dsdealer.com/styles/rav4-launch/

“Entries to the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service awards have almost doubled over the past few years,” said Michael Gallagher, president and founder of the Stevie Awards. “Not only have we seen a dramatic increase in the number of entries; but the judges have also seen a remarkable rise in the quality of the nominations submitted overall. We congratulate all of this year’s Stevie winners for their outstanding work.”

Details about the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service and the list of Stevie winners in all categories are available at www.StevieAwards.com/sales. The Business TalkRadio Network broadcast a recording of the presentations on February 26, at 8:00 pm ET.

*To calculate linked sales revenue, Outsell / Saatchi & Saatchi looked at individuals who interacted with the campaign and subsequently purchased a new RAV4 from a participating dealer. Revenue was calculated based on the price paid to the dealer for each RAV4 sale.

About The Stevie Awards
Stevie Awards are conferred in five programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards, The International Business Awards, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at www.StevieAwards.com.