On a clear and warm summer’s night, the heavens opened up on a small, specific section of a heavily lit Toronto parking lot as passersby stopped to watch the mini rainstorm. A former Hyundai car dealership had been transformed into an Enterprise Rent-A-Car location for a commercial shoot that had cast and crew bracing against the “elements” (i.e. a rain machine).
Enterprise employees (left to right) Marie Mabbayad, Lisa Johnson and Matt Enright will appear in one of three television commercials launching in the coming months.
The rental car company was filming across the Greater Toronto Area last week for an upcoming national television campaign from its creative agency Cannonball. It is the first new marketing campaign from the car rental company since it started advertising in Canada in 2004 – 11 years after opening its first Canadian location.
Jim Stoeppler, brand manager at Enterprise since 2007, said it was important the company develop its business in Canada and gain critical mass before advertising, a process the company followed in both the U.S. and the U.K. markets.
Enterprise had success last March with a U.S.-only television campaign that used real employees, said Stoeppler, and is now introducing the concept north of the border following consumer research in Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. For the casting process, Stoeppler and his team worked with the company’s general managers in Toronto and Montreal to weigh employees against a specific set of criteria that included performance and tenure.
In all, 37 employees (22 from Toronto and 15 from Montreal) were selected to participate in the television campaign. Some, like Sanchia Chowdhury, were given speaking parts. Chowdhury, a senior account manager responsible for selling Enterprise car fleets back to dealerships, said the experience has been a lot of fun and has allowed her to meet people within the company’s network.
“It’s good they picked Enterprise people,” she said. “When you see these commercials, you identify with them. It’ll be fun to see when it’s done.”
Enterprise is looking to separate itself from competitors like Budget, Avis, Discount and Hertz in an industry driven by price and convenience, said Stoepppler.
“We’re big believers in the power of TV and the ability to build the brand through sight, sound and motion,” Stoeppler said. “TV works well for us in terms of what it delivers creatively and from a media perspective.”
Stoeppler said he hopes this campaign will run “for a very long time. We aren’t ones to change things very often. We do a lot of research, so this should live for a long time.”
The television campaign will run in both English and French with two brand spots and one that promotes Enterprise’s NHL sponsorship.
The English portion of the campaign launches Oct. 4 and will be used as pre-roll video on CTV and Shaw’s host of sites. The French ads launch Sept. 12. PHD Canada handled the media buy.
Enterprise employee Sanchia Chowdhury waits to have her hair and makeup done for the shoot.
