Media Selected for RV Industry’s
First National Campaign

The finishing touches are now being put on eight advertisements featuring diverse RVs in spectacular settings for the industry’s first national ad campaign, targeting baby boomers with children. The five print ads and three television commercials are set to appear in national magazines and on cable television between February and June 1997. Chosen to anchor the print campaign is Good Housekeeping, which will also run a national RV vacation sweepstakes to build dealer traffic. Other magazines in the media plan include Southern Living, Sunset, Country Living and The Disney Channel Magazine. Cable networks slated to run the ads include TNT, The Family Channel, Discovery, CNN Head-line News, A&E, The Learning Channel, Nick at Nite and The Weather Channel. For companies that wish to coordinate product advertising around the campaign, a detailed media schedule will be available in November.

Timed to impact the industry’s main selling season, the initial five-month run of the campaign will reach 75 percent of prime RV buying prospects aged 30 to 49 with children an average of 28 times during this period. Overall, it will make 608 million consumer impressions.

The ad campaign is the centerpiece of a three-year, $5 million annual advertising and promotion program being sponsored by the Go RVing Coalition, a nonprofit organization formed by RV manufacturers, component suppliers, dealers and campgrounds to expand the market.

Using the theme, “Recreation Vehicles: Wherever You Go, You’re Always at Home,” the campaign employs messages based on a 1994 communications planning study for the industry by Louis Harris & Associates to reach a new generation of RV buyers while reinforcing the appeal of RV travel to current and former owners. Eisner & Associates, a Baltimore-based advertising agency, developed the ads which feature families representative of the target audience enjoying RV travel and camping in mountain, de-sert and seashore settings.

Key to the ads is a toll-free number — 1-888-GO-RVing — for consumers to call to receive a free, 30-minute “getting started” video and a list of participating Go RVing dealers nationwide who have agreed to support the program by serving as information centers for new buyer prospects. The video details helpful information about RV travel and ownership, including RV types, features and floor plans; costs and financing; the many uses of RVs; the appeal and economic benefits of RV travel; and favorite RV destinations.

Shooting of the advertisements and video took place in southern Oregon, southeastern Utah and southwestern Colorado during a three-week period in September.

Twelve Recreation Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) members were selected by lottery to provide the RVs for the production shoot. Companies chosen were: Coachmen RV, Fleetwood, Home and Park, Jayco, Lance Camper, Serro Scotty, Starcraft RV, Sun-Lite, Sunnybrook, Viking RV, Western RV and Winnebago. Vehicles used appear with no brand identification.

Twenty-three member companies offering a total of 125 RVs in all product categories entered the lottery. The number of units in each product category was determined by the design of the ads and the need to reflect the diversity of the industry’s offerings for the campaign’s main target, the first-time buyer.