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Establishing a memorable brand presence and generating high-intent leads for Caterham through an Always On digital campaign.

Rika partnered with Caterham to establish a consistent brand presence and generate high-intent leads across the UK and EU through a media strategy targeting new, qualified buyer segments. This case study charts the campaigns performance over its first six months, highlighting both brand impact and commercial outcomes achieved through the 'See' and 'Think' streams, each aligned to the consumer buying journey.

The Business challenge

Caterham is an iconic British sports car manufacturer, best known for the Seven and its distinctive "Pure. Simple. Fun." identity. However, the brand faced significant obstacles in its path towards sustained growth:

  • Limited brand presence beyond its existing customer base.
    Caterham remained niche within the broader performance automotive market. The brand's distinctive identity, from the Seven silhouette to the "Pure. Simple. Fun." strapline, wasn't being activated with consistency, rhythm or scale. Long silences between PR moments and product launches had eroded salience and weakened recall. To compete in a small, yet highly-competitive category, the brand needed to move from passive recognition to active recall and desirability, stepping beyond the enthusiast echo chamber and into the consideration set of a wider, but still relevant, market audience.
  • Inconsistent lead generation.
    Generating a consistent flow of leads across its target audience segments was proving to be challenging. Across its network of independent retailers there was an expectation for the brand to supply a steady stream of qualified prospects for the retailers to nurture through to a sale. Economic conditions across the UK and the EU were affecting the confidence of consumers and prices were rising across the automotive industry and its supply-chain.
  • Core product visibility gap.
    Interest in the Seven was not being actively sustained. Without a consistent market presence, the core range risked slipping out of view, with the range's future questioned by prospects unfamiliar with the brand, and its relevance questioned amidst the surge in demand for EVs.
  • No visibility of the customer purchase journey.
     Without closed-loop reporting from campaign to conversion, measuring true ROI and understanding which channels drove qualified leads through to purchase was inconsistent.

Objectives

Caterham needed a way to:

  • Build sustained visibility among new, high-value audiences in the UK and EU, moving Caterham into their consideration set.
  • Generate qualified enquiries that would support retailer-led sales.
  • Deliver measurable uplift in high-intent behaviours, from brand searches to content engagement and enquiry.

Insights

Rika identified to the Caterham leadership that ad-hoc campaigns and long silences between PR communications had weakened brand salience and diluted recall, particularly among new audiences. Building on these insights, Rika presented a strategy to restore Caterham’s presence across its priority markets, revitalise its brand identity, and drive a sustained increase in new car sales enquiries across the UK and EU.

At the centre of our strategy was an Always On campaign approach designed to maintain a persuasive presence throughout the year. This would ensure Caterham remained visible and relevant at every stage of the customer journey, from awareness to enquiry, while reinforcing its distinctive brand codes: the Seven silhouette, the Seven logo, and the “Pure. Simple. Fun.” strapline. By applying these codes relentlessly across every touchpoint, Rika re-established a clear, unified brand narrative that resonated with both loyal enthusiasts and new audiences.

Approach

Rika designed a dual-stream campaign architecture based on the See, Think, Do, Care (STDC) framework:

1. 'See' Stream – Building Awareness and Reach.
Targeting its broadest, yet qualified, audiences across the UK and EU, this stream aimed to build top-of-mind awareness through dynamic creative. By leveraging Caterham's distinctive brand codes, it fostered brand familiarity and resonance, even before consideration and purchase intent signals emerged.

2. 'Think' Stream – Driving Consideration and Enquiry
Nurturing intent and aiming to convert warm audiences into leads, shifting messaging towards consideration drivers like finance options, test drives and experiencing the “Pure. Simple. Fun” of a Caterham Seven. Retargeting strategies served relevant prompts to users who engaged with the campaign’s content, guiding them to take active next steps such as downloading brochures and price lists, configuring their “dream” Seven and making sales enquiries with a retailer.

HubSpot CRM Integration
Campaign leads were tracked from first interaction through to conversion in HubSpot, with automations distributing enquiries across the retailer network based on the prospect’s location and preferences. This provided full visibility of the sales pipeline and enabled real-time performance monitoring across the retailer network.

Buyer Personas
Four detailed personas informed our targeting strategy. These personas enabled interest-based targeting, competitor/substitute brand targeting, retargeting lists, and lookalike audiences.

Direct Media Placements
In March 2025, standout placements were secured in evo (circulation 33,530, total brand reach 1.9M) and Square Mile (circulation 58,728, readership 300K). These placements delivered a halo effect, lifting brand perception, understanding and desirability - building new audiences that were fully receptive to the campaign messaging.

Creative theme

All creative consistently reinforced Caterham's distinctive brand codes: the Seven silhouette, signature colour palette, and "Pure. Simple. Fun." messaging.

Deliverables

  • Always On campaign strategy (See & Think streams)
  • Buyer persona development and targeting strategies
  • Multi-channel media planning and execution
  • Bespoke creative and sonic branding assets
  • Premium print placements (evo, Square Mile)
  • Landing page development
  • HubSpot CRM integration for lead distribution
  • Real-time campaign performance dashboards

The Outcome

The Always On campaign delivered significant commercial and brand impact across the first six months of activity:

455 qualified leads

at £88 cost per lead, outperforming the £300-£500 benchmark and representing approximately 45% of the annual target

13 direct sales tracked

at £3,077 cost per sale—a strong return, though not the full picture. With a known 9-month consideration period for a Seven, many of the 455 leads are still in motion

8.3M reach

with +145K engagements and +763K video views

+66.8% growth in model searches and +29.4% increase in brand searches,

demonstrating meaningful awareness uplift

+400% year-on-year increase

in new car enquiries (+120% vs pre-campaign period)

750 new social followers

and consistent monthly lead flow established
By establishing a consistent Always On presence, Caterham now benefits from reliable demand generation, reduced acquisition costs over time, and the foundation for sustainable growth.
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