Mazda’s challenge was relevance at scale. In an industry category dominated by functional messaging, Mazda sought to consistently express its brand philosophy, “Move and Be Moved,” in a way that felt human, cultural, and emotionally resonant across platforms, without sacrificing performance efficiency. The brand was looking to target all ages, with a priority focus on consumers aged 29-44 across the US, seeking substance in their life and looking to make savvy purchase decisions.
Open Influence’s objective was to build an always-on influencer ecosystem that could flex across Mazda’s priority initiatives, multiple vehicle lines, and distinct audience segments, while delivering content that felt native to creators’ feeds and valuable enough to be repurposed across Mazda’s owned and paid channels.
Specifically, the program aimed to:
The north star was not virality alone, but sustained brand equity and using creators to translate Mazda from a car brand into a cultural presence that people actively choose to engage with, talk about, and consider.
To bring Mazda’s “Move and Be Moved” philosophy to life, Open Influence partnered with a deliberately diverse roster of creators whose storytelling styles mirrored Mazda’s emotional and design-led values. Rather than relying on a single influencer archetype, the team activated cinematic filmmakers, visual artists, photographers, and lifestyle creators, each aligned to specific vehicle lines and cultural moments.
In Art of the Journey, creators such as Joel Roache, Tiffany Nguyen, and Alex Broggi produced cinematic, road-driven narratives that reframed Mazda vehicles as moving works of art, delivering some of the strongest organic and paid performance across the program. The Artists’ Spotlight series paired Mazda with creators like Allie Brinn and Samuel Dennington, who used pottery and photography to translate Mazda’s craftsmanship into tangible art (& content that significantly outperformed benchmarks on both Instagram and TikTok). Meanwhile, culturally reactive storytelling such as I Met My Younger Self for Coffee leveraged trend-native TikTok formats to humanize Mazda through reflection and personal growth. In support of the CX-90, Mazda partnered with creator Cierrah Neal to authentically demonstrate how the flagship SUV fits seamlessly into the real lives of active, connected families.
Beyond social storytelling, Open Influence expanded creative experimentation into YouTube, launching a strategic SEO-driven content test designed to increase discoverability through search. By incorporating best practices across keyword clustering and creator scripting, all three priority keyword cohorts saw month-over-month gains in organic search visibility. All eight videos ranked on page one for branded queries, including “Mazda hybrid SUV” and “Mazda CX-50 Hybrid,” with two videos beginning to rank for non-branded hybrid SUV queries (signaling early traction beyond brand-loyal audiences and into conquesting territory).
Open Influence also worked in close partnership with Mazda’s brand social management agencies, VML and Lafayette American, to extend storytelling into PR-adjacent, brand-relevant and culturally resonant initiatives. This included activating creators who are educators to spotlight Mazda’s support for teachers nationwide through its Giving Tuesday partnership with DonorsChoose, where Mazda matched donations to fund classroom needs across the U.S. The initiative reinforced Mazda’s values-driven positioning while tapping into authentic community voices.
Additionally, the team launched CX-50 Double Up, a culturally inspired creative concept building on the legendary “California Double” -catching a wave in the morning and carving a mountain by sunset. With the Mazda CX-50 Hybrid, that spirit of adventure becomes possible on a single tank. Creators were invited to redefine what a “double-up” means in their own lives, from passion-fueled day trips to purpose-driven cross-country journeys. The result was a collection of aspirational yet attainable stories that positioned the CX-50 Hybrid not just as a vehicle, but as an enabler of possibility fueling the pursuits that move us, and empowering drivers to go further with confidence.
The strategy was anchored in three core principles: creator-led authenticity, creative diversity with performance intent, and paid-ready execution. Creators were selected not by reach alone, but by their ability to naturally express Mazda’s philosophy through lived experience. Content spanned cinematic video, lo-fi TikTok storytelling, carousels, Reels, Stories, and Shorts, intentionally designed to test performance both organically and under paid amplification. From briefing through delivery, assets were developed with repurposing in mind, enabling seamless collaboration with Mindshare and driving efficiency across Meta and TikTok.
The Mazda Always-On program exceeded performance benchmarks across organic and paid media, demonstrating that emotionally led influencer storytelling can deliver both brand and business outcomes.
Key results include:
Importantly, performance was not driven by a single viral moment, but by consistent over-delivery across pulses, validating the always-on approach. Influencer content also proved highly effective in paid environments, contributing to improved CTRs, lower CPCs, and strong brand-lift results when combined with diverse creative formats.
The program successfully repositioned influencer marketing from content production to a strategic growth driver for the brand, one that builds equity, efficiency, and learning over time.
