Mazda is the first advertiser to use Exponential’s Video-Driven Experience (VDX) Content Amplifier, which delivers high engagement and favorable brand perception during digital promotion for Mazda CX-5

EMERYVILLE, Calif. (January 22, 2019) – Exponential Interactive, one of the largest digital advertising companies reaching more than 700 million users monthly, today announced the results from its Garage Team Mazda video campaign to increase brand awareness for the Mazda CX-5. The campaign eclipsed engagement benchmarks, delivering more than double post-engagement click throughs, driving traffic to Mazda’s website.

The goal was to achieve brand awareness in market, with the initiative running from November 2017 to March 2018. The campaign delivered higher engagements and time spent in unit, proving that users were interacting with the content. Thus, it achieved higher vehicle awareness and ad awareness, with a qualified user group of adults ages 18 to 49 in market for a vehicle next year, as reported by Kantar Brand Lift Insights. In particular the video ad campaign drove a significant 30.1 percent lift in vehicle awareness and a 69.6 percent lift in ad awareness.

Garage Team Mazda partnered with Exponential and Motor Trend Group to create awareness through VDX ad units. The offering allows brands, like Mazda, to insert curated content from Motor Trend Group’s media into scalable, interactive and engaging VDX ad units, which are available in a variety of formats including live stream and 360-degree video. Mazda was the first brand advertiser to utilize Exponential’s VDX Content Amplifier offering.

According to Garage Team Mazda, Mazda is constantly on the lookout for new and innovative offerings to showcase Mazda vehicles in a manner that engages buyers, which is what Exponential’s VDX Content Amplifier unit delivers. With Exponential, Garage Team Mazda was able to collaborate and build a campaign that unified creative content with desired performance, ensuring consumers could establish familiarity with the Mazda brand in an immersive way.

The campaign, which promoted the model’s innovation and design, used credible and unbiased content from Motor Trend Group, including Chief Designer Gives Us A Walkaround of the 2017 Mazda CX-5, and 6 Things To Know About the 2017 Mazda CX-5. In addition to the reviews featured in-unit, Garage Team Mazda showcased Mazda’s CX-5 model with other tabs, including Home, Features and Gallery. The Kantar study showed there was an even distribution of user interaction within each tab, assigning high interest to interact with all features within the ad unit.

“Consumers are over-saturated with advertisements, which can be a challenge for brands to connect with their audiences. This deployment of our VDX Content Amplifier highlighted Exponential’s ability to achieve favorable results and relevant advertising for Mazda,” said Danielle Cravatt, SVP of Sales for Americas at Exponential. “The VDX Content Amplifier offering allows brands to deliver interactive ad units through various formats, which has proved successful in enabling Mazda to showcase their CX-5 campaign creative in ad unit.”

Additional notable campaign results include:

• Engagement rate of 2.57 percent targeted to 15 geos
• Average time spent in unit was 32 seconds, exceeding the 23 second benchmark
• Post engagement click through rate of 8.04 percent exceeding the benchmark at 3.14 percent.

To learn more about Exponential and VDX, visit https://exponential.com/.

About Exponential

Exponential is a technology-driven advertising company that enables brands to drive consumer engagement and performance across display, video and mobile.

When you have the right balance of people and technology, amazing things can happen. Exponential uses big data and machine learning to understand consumer interests in real-time, and delivers innovative creative experiences designed to trigger emotions that drive affinity and spend.

For more than 15 years, we have delivered superior advertising products and services that consumers embrace, agencies recommend, brands select, media providers prefer, and our employees are proud of.

Exponential has offices in 16 countries. For more information, please visit www.exponential.com.

About Mazda North American Operations

Mazda North American Operations is headquartered in Irvine, California, and oversees the sales, marketing, parts and customer service support of Mazda vehicles in the United States and Mexico through nearly 600 dealers. Operations in Mexico are managed by Mazda Motor de Mexico in Mexico City. For more information on Mazda vehicles, including photography and B-roll, please visit the online Mazda media center at InsideMazda.MazdaUSA.com/Newsroom.

About Motor Trend Group

Motor Trend Group is the largest automotive media company in the world, bringing together Discovery’s fast-growing Velocity network and a vast automotive digital, direct-to-consumer, social and live event portfolio, including MOTOR TREND, HOT ROD, ROADKILL, AUTOMOBILE, and more than 20 other industry-leading brands. With a cumulative reach of more than 131 million, the company encompasses television’s #1 network for automotive superfans, a leading automotive YouTube Channel, and the Motor Trend app, the only auto-dedicated subscription video-on-demand service.

About Kantar

Kantar is the world’s leading data, insight and consultancy company. We know more about how people live, feel, shop, vote, watch and post worldwide than any other company. Working across the entire sales and marketing lifecycle, we help brands uncover growth in an extraordinary world. Kantar is part of WPP and its services are employed by over half of the Fortune 500 companies in 100 countries.