ZeroLight, ŠKODA, PHD, and Optimist have created an interactive, top-of-funnel mobile advertising experience for prospective car buyers across Europe. The solution, which is being rolled out to 17 countries, enables users to configure and explore the new ŠKODA OCTAVIA directly within the Facebook mobile app. Using Facebook's Instant Experience platform, the interactive advert gives users a range of paint colour, alloy, and interior trim options in a 4-stage interactive experience.

The initial campaign in The Czech Republic exceeded the performance of ŠKODA's common Instant Experience campaigns in all KPIs. As compared to these benchmarks, the average engagement rate with the ads was 3 times higher, and the average amount of time spent interacting with the experience was 43% higher. In total, 68% of users finished the experience, and reaction on Facebook was over 99% positive.

By integrating a configurator directly into the Facebook mobile app, ŠKODA can engage potential customers at the most receptive part of their purchase journeys: the awareness and consideration stages. It's vitally important that OEMs develop and deploy engaging solutions that can influence customers' decisions at these upper funnel stages, as this is where most customers have yet to decide on the brand that they will go on to purchase from.

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At ŠKODA, our customer-first principles guide us in all that we do, including the development of innovative and inventive communication formats and tools. That's exactly what we are achieving here - we have made our configurator an appealing part of the Facebook experience to seamlessly lead potential customers to our key business tool. Even if no immediate conversion is made, the visual and interactive experience alone is greatly contributing to the brand image of SKODA and the desirability of the OCTAVIA. It's definitely another "keeper" in our communication toolbox.

_{Tobias Talmon, Head of ŠKODA Global Marketing Communication}

The user navigates through the 4-stage guided experience by choosing their preferred configuration and options. To enable the user to fully explore each option, these full-screen micro-experience pages feature a range of engaging visual elements, including detailed feature spots, images, videos, and panoramas.

As a creative agency these are incredibly exciting times to change the conversation through experiences. Widely used social media platforms like Facebook and its Instant Experience have reduced the constraints on advertising creative and enabled us to grow the engagement in our campaigns with a broader audience.

_{Steffen Günther, Client Service Director for Optimist Prague}

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This project demonstrates how high-end visualisation solutions can enhance every stage of the automotive purchase journey, at scale. By seamlessly integrating highly interactive content into a key upper-funnel touchpoint, ŠKODA has delivered this new experience directly in the hands of future customers, thus maximising overall engagement and brand impact.

_{Francois de Bodinat, Chief Product Officer, ZeroLight}

The content was delivered in collaboration with media buyers, PHD, and creative agency, Optimist. PHD managed the communications strategies, while Optimist provided the brand guidelines and approved the design, which was led by ZeroLight. A master template of the Facebook Instant experience was created and then adapted to suit each market's needs, with country-specific variations in design, copy, and vehicle information and features

Our primary focus is ensuring we deliver the best possible digital configuration experience for our future customers. Facebook's Instant Experiences enabled us to achieve this by combining interactive and engaging content, delivered with the world's best-in-class technology.

_{Brendan Hewitt, Global Innovation Director, PHD}

The experience was first deployed in The Czech Republic on the 20th of March. It then went live in Germany on the 27th of March and Slovakia on the 3rd of April, with Sweden and Italy set to follow in by the end of May. The project will then be rolled out to Denmark, Spain, and France in June before being extended to the UK, Ireland, Poland, Australia, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland and Russia throughout the rest of the year.

About ZeroLight
ZeroLight is a cloud-based 3D visualisation specialist offering car-configuration and content-production solutions to the automotive industry. Designed to enhance touchpoints across the vehicle-shopping journey, these globally scalable solutions deliver competitive advantages to clients by driving engagement, higher specification sales, and lower content-production costs. For more information about ZeroLight, go to  zerolight.com