Battery Zone

Recharging a powerful brand through advertising

A 'paint-by-numbers' campaign

COVID-19 has created no end of challenges for businesses worldwide. For Battery Zone, New Zealand’s leading provider of battery testing, fitment, and advisory services, a strict national lockdown in 2020 meant Kiwis were no longer hitting the road for work or leisure.

As restrictions started to ease, the company needed to find a way to encourage their target audience to get back outside and embrace boating, camping and holidaying—while also promoting Battery Zone to power those adventures.

Battery Zone approached Viabrand® to develop an advertising campaign that encouraged cooped-up Kiwis to re-discover their own backyard and built brand awareness for the company’s products as roadside service tools.

Travel restrictions, social distancing protocols and a limited budget meant a traditional photoshoot was out of the question. The solution would need to be a little more creative.

The solution:

A “Paint by Numbers” Framework

For any outdoor campaign, strong visual elements are key to capturing the audience’s imagination. With a photoshoot off the table, the Viabrand® team decided a to create a unique Photoshop solution that allowed for creativity, consistency, and ongoing collaboration with the client.

Viabrand® developed a systematic, universally adaptable design framework that carefully considered the use of imagery, text and calls to action in each advertisement. This “paint by numbers” approach designated similar design elements to the same space.

For example, each advertisement followed a general pattern, with a vehicle or person front and centre, the company logo in the bottom right, text in the top left, and a lower quadrant banner that included a description and call to action.

A design framework

Images were individually sourced and layered with the other design elements in close collaboration with the Battery Zone team. As a result, each handcrafted advertisement looks as though it is the result of a dedicated photoshoot.

The design framework guaranteed brand consistency, which is essential for customer recall, while significantly reducing the costs associated with traditional, photoshoot-based campaigns. Moving forward, the Battery Zone team can easily adapt the framework in the future for additional marketing and advertising campaigns.

Making a splash in the market

The out-of-home campaign was big and bold, with the combination of design thinking and Photoshop magic creating high quality advertisements that really stood out.

Viabrand® worked closely with Battery Zone to stress-test mock-ups before releasing the ads into the wild. Thanks to this invaluable client collaboration, Viabrand® could take on board feedback and tweak the designs until they were the right fit for a number of carefully selected out-of-home (OOH) bookings.

The result was a series of distinctive and impactful advertisements from Auckland to Christchurch, and everywhere in between. Placements included publication ads and bus back bookings, all of which were selected to reach a broad audience.

Battery Zone making an impact

Overall, the campaign’s combination of striking imagery, clever messaging, and thoughtful placements helped the advertisements make an impact, but it was the client collaboration throughout the project, particularly during testing and implementation, that was key for seamless campaign roll out.

In the future, Viabrand®’s design framework will make it straightforward for Battery Zone to create additional advertising campaigns—and continue to keep New Zealand on the road.

What They Say
“Jho, Amber and the entire team are just true masters of their tradecraft. Their product is absolutely exceptional and it’s matched pound-for-pound by their customer service. Working with Viabrand on our organisation’s brand evolution project was an absolute joy and I couldn’t speak highly enough of the experience end-to-end. Thanks, Viabrand!”
John - CEO (Workcom)