An electrifying bus ride: MAN wins gold at BCM Award with Electrifying Europe Tour
- MAN Truck & Bus receives the Best of Content Marketing (BCM) Award in Gold in the category "Mobility" together with Axel Springer Corporate Solutions
- Jury impressed by the successful storytelling of the road trip
- Broad public and press followed the tour in April and May 2022
- MAN uses the tour to demonstrate the everyday suitability and reliability of its electrified products
MAN Truck & Bus has received the Best of Content Marketing Award (BCM) in Gold together with Axel Springer Corporate Solutions. The award went to the Electrifying Europe Tour - a road trip with the battery-electric MAN Lion's City 12 E city bus through eight European countries. After MAN Truck & Bus together with Axel Springer Corporate Solutions already won the coveted FOX AWARD in the "Car" category in October 2022, the jury of the Best of Content Marketing (BCM) Award has now also honoured the digital storytelling project around the all-electric trip from Munich to Limerick.
Björn Loose, Senior Vice President Marketing & Brand MAN Truck & Bus SE, accepted the award in Berlin in front of 140 guests and said: "This award is renewed confirmation of our great and innovative products and how we stage them interactively and creatively via the various marketing and communication channels".
Heinz Kiess, Head of Product Marketing Bus at MAN Truck & Bus, was also very pleased about the award: "We are very proud to have received a second important award with this story, which is moving in both senses. This is further confirmation that this road trip across Europe was also a complete success in terms of communication. Our team has succeeded in showing how reliable and suitable for everyday use we already are in terms of electric mobility. Our customers can expect a lot more from us here in the coming years."
The best in content-driven communication
The Best of Content Marketing Award (BCM) brings the best of the best from all relevant works in content-driven communication in the German-speaking world onto the stage. It consistently focuses on content in the judging process. In 2023, almost 200 jurors decided on the awards in 37 categories.
"Successful and touching campaign"
At the heart of MAN Truck & Bus's campaign for the "Electrifying Europe Tour" was an interactive landing page on which the latest updates on each stage were published. "A classic road trip, this is storytelling! Congratulations on the successful and also touching action of giving emotionality and adventure to what for so many is an ordinary everyday object that is usually not given much attention," was the jury feedback. "With the claim Electrifying Europe, the focus was on a clear, easy-to-understand message that offered a variety of content facets for profiling the MAN brand and for an exciting road trip experience. Implemented in a catchy key visual, the claim also visually held all the measures together," the jury continued.
Almost 2,500 kilometres, ten days, eight countries
The background: From 9 to 12 May 2022, the International Bus Euro Test 2022 took place in Limerick, Ireland, to which MAN was invited with the MAN Lion's City 12 E. Instead of having the vehicle delivered to the test by low-loader, the eBus was to show what it could do on the way there. The aim of the "Electrifying Europe" trip was to demonstrate the performance and versatility of fully electric city buses. The story behind it: The Lion's City E manages the 2,500 km long distance through valleys and mountains, through cities, on country roads and on the motorway within 10 days. "The mix of facts and emotional experiences was very well received. We took many people from different countries with us on our journey - with videos, photos, reports, background reports and lots of statistics, which we published on our website, on social media and on the intranet," says Sebastian Lindner, Head of Communication Bus at MAN Truck & Bus. So instead of just reporting on the press test in Limerick, the journey there became an attention-grabbing PR event.
