In the highly competitive auto industry, spring and fall are prime time. They are the peak periods when car shoppers are active, highly engaged, and intent on buying their next vehicle. These are the moments when the industry experiences the biggest spikes in demand of the year. 

Kijiji’s online automotive marketplace connects Canadians with individuals and dealerships in their community to buy and sell readily available vehicles, both new and used. Despite having a strong presence in the automotive retailer space in Canada, Kijiji’s brand consideration and preference were on a steady decline, putting pressure on overall visits to its online auto marketplace. Kijiji needed to elevate its advantage and the value of its online marketplace to benefit from the Fall car buying season’s massive demand. 

To be successful, Kijiji needed to find a way to get fall car buyers to think Kijiji and visit its online auto marketplace. 

Car buying intenders don’t wait to wait for the vehicle they purchase - they want the vehicle they buy in the fall, in the fall, not sometime in the next year. A survey commissioned by Kijiji reinforced this - only 16 per cent of Canadians are actually willing to wait five or more months for a factory-ordered car. 

But the reality was, they would have to wait – really wait. The average wait time for a factory ordered car had creeped up to a ridiculously long 5 months! 

Enter Kijiji. On Kijiji’s online auto marketplace, car buying intenders had their choice of over 200,000 vehicles available right now. They didn’t have to wait. 

That led us to our insight - With Kijiji Autos, car buyers can skip a ridiculously long 5-month wait for the factory ordered car they want now. 

To show the absurdity of having to wait so long for a car when you can find one on Kijiji right now, Kijiji created “WaitListening” – a ridiculously long 5-month long podcast episode to listen to while you wait a ridiculously long 5 months for the car you bought elsewhere. 

By telling people the obvious – that waiting 5 months is as ridiculous as listening to a 5-month long podcast, we encouraged car buying intenders to follow our advice: skip the wait. Instead, find your next ride from over 200,000 vehicles on Kijiji today (but if they insist on waiting, they can listen to the Podcast while at it). 

For those who chose to listen, WaitListening was as long as the wait in real life. Continuously running for 5-months straight, it’s the world’s longest podcast episode, covering everything from the history of car-manufacturing to the emergence of electric vehicles. This was both a creative idea and the medium in which we brought our message to life. 

And as podcasts do, WaitListening had sponsored ads – from Kijiji Autos of course. With 60,000+ Kijiji Autos ads throughout, we took many opportunities to encourage people to stop waiting and start looking for their next vehicle on Kijiji Autos.  

Digitally, the campaign was promoted like any podcast would – on Spotify, social, digital, and in PR. 

In real life Kijiji supported their efforts and encouraged car intenders to skip the wait through OOH and radio. 

From the social media support, to our digital ads, and even the podcast landing page, Kijiji emphasized the absurdity of waiting…and listening. 

Who wants to wait for a car they just bought? With WaitListening, the call to “skip the wait” hit a chord with fall car buyers. With Kijiji.ca, car buyers could choose from over 200,000 in-stock autos versus having to wait an average of 5 months for a factory ordered model. 

The results for the fall campaign period were impressive – online sessions increased +10.5% in the campaign market (Halifax) versus the control market (New Brunswick) where the campaign did not run. Site visits also increased versus the same time period in the year previous. Important results for Kijiji given the importance of the fall car buying season when the category sees a massive spike in sales. 

Additionally, Kijiji WaitListening increased Kijiji consideration and preference, as measured by a pre and post campaign brand health tracking study conducted in Nova Scotia. In particular, consideration increased +12.2% with car buying intenders and preference for Kijiji increased +11% with car buying intenders. 

Finally, as an added bonus, Kijiji WaitListening garnered a ton of media attention: 1.8 million impressions in Halifax alone. 

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