A press conference introducing the first family to lease a hydrogen-powered vehicle in Canada.
One of the biggest launch campaigns I worked on was Canada’s first-ever retail sale of a hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV). While these zero-emissions vehicles have been around for years, they were only really used in test fleets in limited capacity, with government for demonstrations, or other, similarly restrained situations. No automotive company had ever registered the sale to a regular, everyday customer.
A FCEV has a highly advanced propulsion system that directs oxygen from the atmosphere and hydrogen from on-board storage tanks through an electrochemical process to generate electricity for mobility and pure water vapour as exhaust.
It’s simply a marvel of modern engineering. It has the range, refueling experience, and driving performance similar to a gasoline-powered vehicle but the exhaust is so clean you can drink it.
The big event was a press conference at the 2015 Toronto Auto Show (video here and below), but that was the second part of a strategic plan to roll this launch out.
The first happened about four months earlier with a smaller press conference in Vancouver that announced the company was asking for potential customers to apply to lease one of these next-generation vehicles. That was paired with a website providing information about the product and the application form. We were upfront about some unique parameters of daily driving the vehicle, largely because there were limited choices in refueling options. This meant we had a small geographic area where we would prioritize applicants and needed to find customers with a pioneering spirit.
Still, we were overwhelmed with applications.
After reviewing the submissions, we conducted phone, followed by in-person meetings with the potential customers, finally selecting our first family to receive the vehicle as well as customers that would follow.
The press conference at the Toronto Auto Show where we delivered the keys to the first retail customer of a FCEV.
Canada’s first FCEV customers were brought to Toronto and were the main attraction for our press conference at the country’s largest auto show.
The impact was huge. Not only did it generate hundreds of articles in the media and generous social media activity, but it also put my employer squarely within the public narrative on the future of zero emissions transportation in Canada.
The most interesting aspect to me was how many doors it opened from a communications perspective. I’ll go into more detail about that in my next post, but my biggest take-away from one of the biggest campaigns I worked on was how important it was to find the depth of the storytelling narrative opportunity after bringing something to market for the first time.