Subaru of New Zealand
Subaru of New Zealand have been a Sparks client since 2015 when a new Drupal 7 site was delivered. Jump forward to 2023 and the impending Drupal 7 EOL, a new Drupal 10 website was planned and delivered.
The existing Drupal 7 website was already doing what it needed to do. It had driven growth and met marketing goals since the day of launch and the client was very happy.
The main goal of the upgrade to Drupal 10 was to provide a platform for the future, showcasing the marketing collateral and rich content available for the online experience.
The site needed to be “easy to consume” and the client was thinking “minimalist excellence” on par with premium or luxury brands - both other automotive peers but also in the fashion, travel and lifestyle space their customers also saw themselves in.
Strategy & planning
Visual design
Responsive front & back end build
Ongoing support & collaboration
Large, emotive images (and when available video) put each vehicle into a distinctly New Zealand landscape, and invite the user to see themselves out there with Subaru. Iconic brand elements from the typography and use of space to direct the eye, to the language and tone of voice, tie the website into campaigns and real world touchpoints.
Built using the Sector Drupal Distribution - a New Zealand open source product - ease of updates and security monitoring is baked in, and there is a suite of market-proven solutions for Search Engine Optimisation, Media Management including video for mobile, and smart use of new technology such as React to create smart interactions in-page as seen in the Variant Comparison Table.
The build uses the latest technology to drive the interactive features. With attention to security and privacy the new site integrates seamlessly with Autoplay to deliver all leads directly to our dealers. Search engine traffic is catered for with optimisation built-in, and marketing campaigns are supported with lead pages for promotions, and articles to support talking points in the trade press.
Page layout and site navigation have been aligned with user journeys to make it easy for any visit to begin with a model, feature search or campaign landing and then traverse key selling information before leading to dealer contact.
The process of building a new website from scratch is often quite an overwhelming project to tackle, with attention to detail required at each milestone of the build.
Working with Sparks Interactive was easily the best experience I’ve had on a website build. Sparks have a professional deadline focused approach, and yet they never seem stressed, even at critical phases of a project. Sparks took on all the heavy lifting of our website design and build, they are very solutions focused – nothing was ever an issue.
Our brief was to simply build a site which provides an excellent customer experience across all devices, while empowering the Subaru team to be able to take ownership of the site. We didn’t want to be tied down to web developers every time we wanted to create a page or build a form. Sparks took this on board and built a site that has exceeded expectations. Analytics are already demonstrating return on investment, and we are also enjoying evolving the site together following the launch. We look forward to a long term future with the team.
If you are looking for new digital business partners, I highly recommend you get in touch with Sparks.
Daile Stephens. Head of Brand Marketing, Inchcape New Zealand
If you need to reinvigorate your website then talk to us. Hayden can talk you through the creative process of bringing an iconic brand to life online and would be more than happy to discuss how to make a content managed site that works for marketers and engages with your audience.
