TOPICS COVERED: Media, Content Integration, Added-value, Extended Visibility

Connecting Cooper Tires Relevantly to Consumer’s Interest

Challenge

With the typical person having numerous forms of media in which to consume, often at the same time, MARC USA needed to

develop a strategy for Cooper Tires that would pull their attention forward to what the brand was communicating. With limited

dollars in the marketplace, along with fragmentation of today’s media and the attention issues that come this cluttered media

environment, it wasn’t enough to accept what media providers typically offer – standard schedule of commercials. Cooper Tires

needed their media dollars to work harder to make sure their message and what the brand stood for resonated and was heard.

Igniting a Connection

To make the brand stand out, MARC USA pushed the media providers well outside their comfort zones and brought together the

real-time content audiences were watching and gravitating to and relevantly weaved Cooper Tires’ brand strategy within this

content. This enabled the Cooper Tires message to connect to the audience’s interests, allowing their message to be heard in the

context of the consumer’s viewing habits. MARC USA worked collaboratively with content providers in both the U.S. and Canada to

uncover effective ways to bring new content to viewers, while having this content support the Cooper Tires’ brand strategy. This

fusion of content and brand yield extraordinary value for Cooper Tires (in access of $1,000,000 of relevant content).

Consumers tune to content that interests them. If a brand can make a relevant connection within that content and provide a new,

unique service to the viewers, the brand message is enabled to enter the consumers’ mindset more effectively.

Lighting Up the Experience

Cooper Tires’ brand strategy of “Built for Life’s Every Day Road Trip” was brought into the consumers’ mindset through unique

connections to their viewing habits. From “Road Trip Report” on Weather networks focusing on weather conditions in a drivable

distance from every viewers’ home; to “Road Trip” features in hockey content that focused on challenges and performances of

teams/players on the road; to asking college football viewers road-game questions via halftime polls; the “Road Trip” element of

the brand’s strategy was relevantly integrated within content viewers were gravitating to.

Inciting a Reaction

• With equal spend from the prior period, promotional rebates were up 45% during the period with content integration

• YOY sales increased 21%

• Extended the media visibility by more than 20% with added relevant content integration at no added cost

o Bonus content integration valued at nearly $1,000,000.

• Connected the Cooper Tires brand strategy directly to consumer’s real-time viewing interests

TOPICS COVERED: Media, Brand building in a new country, Content Integration, Added-value

Growing Cooper Tires in a New Country

Challenge

Cooper Tires had been in Canada for several years, but sales were minimal and most Canadians either didn’t know of Cooper Tires

or mistook the brand name for a popular brand of hockey equipment. MARC USA’s challenge was to introduce Cooper Tires while

generating awareness and visibility for their extensive Canadian dealer network.

Igniting a Connection

With limited budget, MARC USA developed a media strategy that centered on being “culturally relevant” with sports, outdoor and

weather media. To best integrate Cooper Tires into culturally relevant media, MARC USA worked with media partners to develop

unique ways to include the brand’s “Road Trip” brand strategy into TV content. Within this strategy was a mission to make

Canadian consumers aware of independent Cooper Tires dealers across the country.

Lighting Up the Experience

MARC USA created a media plan that tapped into Canadian pastimes/interests of hockey, weather reports and fishing. Where this

plan was made unique was two-fold: 1) Its ability to generate visibility and support for the local dealers and 2) Relevantly

integrating the brand into consumer content.

Dealer Visibility and Support

Hockey visibility wasn’t limited to NHL, rather we developed a sponsorship with the CHL (a junior major league of young men 16-21

where 50% of NHL players come from) that got Cooper Tires into 60 small, local markets and placed the brand into the #1 sports

property within 45 Canadian markets, building brand presence down to the smallest of dealer markets. Further, we utilized a

national weather network’s TV tagging technology and mobile weather app to provide local dealer location/contact information to

all individual Canadian households, helping consumers know exactly where their nearest Cooper Tires dealer was located.

Content Integration

Cooper Tires’ brand strategy of “Built for Life’s Every Day Road Trip” was brought into the consumers’ mindset through unique

connections to their viewing content. From “Road Trip Report” on weather networks focusing on weather conditions in a drivable

distance from every viewers’ home; to “Road Trip“ features during hockey games that focused on challenges and performances of

teams/players on the road, MARC USA embedded the brand within content that consumers actively chose.

Inciting a Reaction

• Reached over 85% of all Canadian consumers

• Extended the media visibility by nearly 40% with relevant content integration at no added cost

• Increased sales YTY by 18% to 21% yearly (during years when the Canadian tire industry was in decline)

• Grew Cooper Tires business in Canada from not being stocked at Canadian Tire (largest mass retailer in CA) to earning their

Top 25 Marketer status in just two years

TOPICS COVERED: Media, B2B, Breaking through Ad clutter, Increasing Brand presence with no incremental cost

Making a Big Splash toward Retailers/Dealers

Challenge

Cooper Tires has a lot of competition when it comes to tire brand visibility within the tire industry trade media. Traditionally, they

are outspent by the majority of their competitors that create visibility in the trades year-round. MARC USA’s challenge was to

develop a means to stretch and maximize Cooper Tires’ dollars and create highly impactful visibility that could not be missed in the

sea of trade clutter.

Igniting a Connection

MARC USA developed a unique strategy of getting the Cooper Tires messages not only in positions where it could not be missed or

overlooked, but also doubling Cooper Tires’ visibility at no extra cost.

Lighting Up the Experience

Employing outserts that placed Cooper Tires on the front cover, inserts that made the publication break open to the Cooper Tires

message, and utilizing prestitial digital units that opened before the user had access to the trade websites’ main homepage

provided “can’t miss” multi-media visibility toward retailers and dealers. By managing/consolidating the production process with

the most efficient vendor amongst these trade publications, MARC USA was also able to grow Cooper Tires’ visibility by 100%,

doubling the messaging at no additional spend.

Retailers and dealers attentions were grabbed as soon as they got their trade publications or went to the trade websites. Further,

even when the publications were not actively being read, the Cooper Tires visibility via the outsert was front and center, still

working on creating impact, be it on a desk, on the front counter, or on a table in the show room/waiting room.

Inciting a Reaction

• Moving to inserts/outserts not only moved Cooper Tires visibility far forward in the trades, the economies MARC USA

earned via print production within the trades allowed for the dollars to double the insertions, increasing our presence by

100%.

• Inserts/Outsert earned Cooper Tires the highest recall of all tire brand ads in issues where they were present.

• According to Cooper Tires, the CS5 launch was their largest and best launch contributing to sales of over 1.8 million tires in

2014, representing 20% of their total passenger market of Cooper Brand tires.

TOPICS COVERED: Media, Content Integration, Added-value

Making a Long-term Sponsorship Stronger, More Impactful, More Efficient

Challenge

Cooper Tires has been a long-time sponsor of ABC College Football Halftime Reports for over 8 years. With anything long-term,

Cooper Tires needed this important sponsorship to stay fresh and relevant to the brand. MARC USA’s challenge was to revive a

long-standing sponsorship, bring the brand’s strategy relevantly into the content, engage with fans relevantly, all the while

lowering the future cost of the premium sponsorship.

Igniting a Connection

To help revive the College Football Halftime Report, MARC USA asked ABC to rethink what a sponsor could achieve within their

content. MARC USA challenged ABC to see this as an opportunity for Cooper Tires to “own” the halftime report within the viewers’

mindset. The goal was to saturate the full 20 minutes of content with Cooper Tires brand identifications as well as relevantly

integrate with content, to generate the greatest impact for the dollars.

In addition to rethinking what a sponsor could achieve with the Halftime Report, MARC USA was also able to work with ABC to

lower future costs of the yearly sponsorship via a three year agreement. This longer vision allows Cooper Tires to lower typical

college football TV costs increases from 11% per year, to 5%, saving over a $1 million.

Lighting Up the Experience

From first ever video billboards on ABC sports; to branding ESPN intellectual property with Cooper Tires imagery; to changing the

content of a poll from pure college football to more brand relevant “Road Trip” questions; to saturating all 20 minutes of the

halftime with branded identification on lead-ins, scoreboards, polls, billboards, bottom-line tickers, etc., Cooper Tires quickly took

over the Halftime Report.

Viewers were further engaged with the brand in real-time when MARC USA integrated the new 2014 “Real Life Performance”

brand strategy into the Halftime Report content via a twitter activated poll titled “Real Deal Performers”. This social media driven

poll reached over 12 million twitter followers and received nearly 9,000 votes over 7 games. This new social media element to the

sponsorship allowed Cooper Tires to interact socially with over 1.3 million ESPN twitter followers weekly.

Inciting a Reaction

• Bonus brand identification time on ABC valued at over $500,000 in 2014.

• Reached out to over 12 million ESPN twitter followers and gained over 110 new Cooper Tire followers via integrating a social

media poll into TV content.

• Cooper Tires marketing efforts in August-October had a positive impact on ad awareness (4.4% lift), as well as familiarity

(4.4%-5.3% lift), consideration (3.5% lift) and purchase (1.7% lift).

• Traffic to Cooper Tires’ website was lifted by up to 20% during weekends with Halftime Report sponsorships.

TOPICS COVERED: Media, Content Integration, Added-value

Building Brand Visibility in the Dog Days of Summer

Challenge

Summer is typically a low point for TV viewing. With vacations and long warm days come slumping TV ratings. Cooper Tires

needed visibility for their summer promotion period. MARC USA was challenged with finding a way to promote Cooper Tires and

its promotion during a season when most people are hard to access via media.

Igniting a Connection

To help Cooper Tires gain summer visibility, MARC USA developed a unique alliance with the one thing on TV that is strong in

summer and over-delivers heavy tire buyers - Major League Baseball. Just like all politics is local, so too is baseball. The best MLB

ratings are not the big national games on FOX, TBS, or ESPN rather, it’s in the local markets (in fact, 85% of all MLB viewing is local).

With local markets, comes local fan interest, comes much higher viewership (commonly the #1 program airing in each market

during this period). MARC USA developed a unique partnership of all the regional sports networks that air local MLB games across

the entire U.S, thereby building national presence at a local level. This local level interest assured Cooper Tires strong visibility for

their summer promotion.

Lighting Up the Experience

To enhance Cooper Tires’ visibility in MLB, MARC USA worked with all of the regional sports networks to build in-game presence for

the Brand. Bump-out units off the fixed on-screen scorecard were develop (both vertical and horizontal) to capture viewers’

attention when it’s at its peak, in the game action itself. These bump-outs supported the promotion messaging, adding

incremental exposure to the promotion beyond the commercials.

Inciting a Reaction

• Bonus brand identification time in MLB games valued at over $100,000 in 2014.

• Rebate redemptions up 30% compared to the year prior.

• During the MLB flight, Cooper Tires saw an unprecedented lift in site traffic, averaging 9% lift per week with a 19% lift in the

last week of the MLB campaign.