Audi SF Leverages OTT with QR Codes for Brand Awareness

Audi is one of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers, with a history dating back over a century. Its award-winning vehicles generate annual revenue of more than 50M USD and the company employs nearly 100K people worldwide.

RTB House was charged with running a campaign to build awareness of an offer on the Audi Q5 model for Audi San Francisco—a dealership serving the 6th largest market in the US, with 7.7M residents in the Bay Area.

RTB House delivered a geo-targeted connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) campaign to efficiently maximize reach across streaming content.

The rise in “cord-cutting” has created an opportunity for luxury vehicle dealerships to move away from traditional media like TV ads and target users via new and impactful CTV and OTT platforms.

This shift in strategy has several advantages: online video ads maintain the feel of premium TV adverts while enabling companies to more precisely target customers using rich data sets accessible through digital channels.

Despite the benefits, it can be difficult to maximize the value of data using basic Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning. Additionally, it is challenging to measure the engagement rate of CTV and OTT ads. Audi San Francisco needed an ad-tech partner which could maximize the value of data and serve brand awareness ads to the right audience.

RTB House created high-quality creatives with scannable QR codes for triggering user engagement embedded in the ads – the first time RTB House or Audi had tried such a solution.

These 15 to 30-second Streaming Video Ads for the Audi Q5 were shown in a format optimized for each end-user.

Campaign efficacy was also ensured by targeting users in the appropriate geographical area. Deep Learning algorithms also used contextual data to identify those most likely to engage with ads relating to the Audi Q5 offer.

RTB House was able to target high-quality platforms and identify the top context categories. As a result, the cost per view was 25% lower than the industry average. At scale, RTB House estimates that the campaign could reach 100,000 users per day.

Additionally, analytics by MOAT have shown that 96% of measured impressions were viewed with a completion quality metric of 100%, while 96.36% were both audible and visible upon completion.

Audi was able to gather leads via users who scanned the QR code. These users show strong interest and have a higher likelihood of conversion compared to clicks, meaning QR codes represent a potent addition to existing ads.