To increase awareness of our EV trucks while remaining authentic to our base, we had to not only meet fans where they are but speak their language, too. Specifically, on TikTok. There’s little more synonymous in this world than Chevy trucks and country music and with GM’s push for an all-electric future, we wanted to create the same association for electric trucks and country music. By doing so, we hoped to shift perceptions of EV trucks and engage a whole new audience in the process.
If making EV trucks cool was our objective, there was an obvious influencer to make this dream a reality. Viral, award-winning TikTok country performer, Breland, who was the face of our overwhelmingly popular My Truck campaign.
We collaborated with Breland for a second time and gave him the simple brief to create a catchy, cross-over country song inspired by the Silverado EV. The result? My Kind of Truck. An ear worm of a track that will for sure live on repeat in your head.
We knew if we wanted eyeballs and engagement, we’d need to hop onto a social behavior that was second nature on TikTok. Which is how we landed on having fans use the duet feature to record their own second verse to My Kind of Truck. To build participation, we’d need to offer a reward. Enter a fully expensed paid trip to Nashville, a meeting with Breland and the opportunity to perform at the 50th Annual CMA Fest in June.
Launched at the CMA Awards in November and amplified by a few famous country influencer friends, participants were given 6 weeks to enter. Once all entries were in, Breland, country singer pal Dierks Bentley and a GM engineer were on call to select a winner.
Once a winner was declared — Wisconsin-bred country duo, RivXRichie — we had to keep the momentum going. So, we created a second mini campaign, Road to the Stage, following our winners from Wisconsin to Nashville. This three-part series detailed their beginnings, arrival in Nashville, performance, and meeting with Breland.
With a slice-of-life feel and the raw emotion of dreams realized, Road to the Stage was the heart-tugging ending the campaign needed.
The entire project lasted 8 months, spanned multiple mediums, elevated numerous voices and made a massive splash almost immediately.
Within its first week, Duet with Breland racked up 74.6M impressions, 2.2M clicks and 1.6M branded views.
By Duet with Breland’s wrap in Dec of 2022, it had accumulated 1K submissions, 93M videos views, 282.3K engagements, 4.6K post saves and 7.9B hashtag video views on our #ChevyEVSongContest page on TikTok, with a mix of organic and paid performance.
But our campaign raged on and continued to pick up momentum as we moved into part 2.
By Sept. of 2023, #ChevyEVSongContest had amassed 10.8B hashtag views and 1.1M engagements.
Meanwhile, Good Morning America reported on each phase of the contest, along with a series of local Wisconsin news outlets congratulating the winners.
