• by Karl Greenberg , September 14, 2013

Enterprise Rent-A-Car isn't just rent-a-car. The company sells cars and rents commercial trucks, and in 2007 launched a car-share program.

The division of St. Louis-based Enterprise Holdings, which also owns Alamo and National brands, will promote its mobility services with a national, overarching campaign -- plugging, among other things, its 6-year-old car-sharing program, Enterprise CarShare.

The national campaign touts Enterprise as a total transportation solution comprising neighborhood and airport car rental, car-sharing, ride-matching, van-pooling services, car sales and commercial truck rental, with creative residing under the company's 2-year-old "The Enterprise Way" platform.  

The campaign, which features Enterprise employees, comprises five new national and cable spots running between now and April 2014. The Enterprise CarShare TV spot launched Saturday during the Southeastern Conference football; the ad is also running on Enterprise's YouTube channel. Then comes an Enterprise Car Sales ad, and two ads that highlight Enterprise’s NCAA and NHL partnerships, and then an ad featuring several of the brand’s mobility offerings. 

The NCAA and NHL ads tout Enterprise's status as official rental car brand of the NHL and the NCAA, with the latter marketing message around the company's policy of hiring college graduates right out of school, many of them athletes. That's a policy the company has had in place for years, notes Jim Stoeppler, assistant VP, Enterprise brand marketing. He tells Marketing Daily that the NHL spot is about how Enterprise is a fan of the league and "We help you get from our seats to your seats."

"This is our first national ad for CarShare commercial, and first around truck and car sales," he says. "We have been doing [the latter] since the company was founded, but over the past 20 years we have increased focus on it. We want to increase the retail side of the business."

Stoeppler says Enterprise CarShare actually launched in 2007 on college campuses and with B-to-B deals that puts share fleets on corporate campuses like the Googleplex, "but on the retail side, we wanted to cut our teeth and learn that business, as we see retail growing; it's something we have wanted to get into." He points out that Enterprise's car-share fleets are in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and now Washington, D.C. And the company is now running the program on 70 college campuses, and plans to more than double that over the next year, he says. "It's a natural extension of the local car-rental market; I don't think it will dominate, but it has a role as technology advances; more people are comfortable getting a car that way."

He says beyond the younger demographic, "there's a sizable population of boomers and empty nesters now moving back into cities and they are completely comfortable using this; we see it as part of a total transportation solution."

The campaign is supported by targeted paid media in digital, mobile and social channels, as well as an owned content initiative with the online versions of Sporting News and Bleacher Report that is also a part of the new advertising campaign. 

The big message for all elements of the campaign, says Stoeppler, is to "elevate and expand what consumers know and think of Enterprise. Our total awareness is around 98%, but this helps perception in terms of Enterprise being in a strong leadership capacity. Our larger goal is for total mobility to have a halo effect on brand."

The creative for the new TV spots was developed by Cannonball Advertising and Promotion. PHD Media Network handles all media planning and buying duties.