Renault Bets on Electric Identity With the #NewMegane Launch
Renault's #NewMegane campaign is a 2021 automotive film produced by Publicis Conseil that unveiled the All-New Mégane E-TECH Electric at the IAA Mobility show in Munich, positioning the compact car as the opening statement of Renault's Renaulution strategy and its Nouvelle Vague design and technology philosophy.
The campaign launched on 6 September 2021, coinciding with the opening days of the Munich Motor Show, known in trade circles as IAA2021. Its central asset is a single film, published in French and distributed primarily through Renault Group's official YouTube channel and amplified across the brand's social media ecosystem — Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest — under the hashtag #NewMegane. According to archive metadata, the film accumulated 23,651 views, 169 likes, and 19 comments, figures modest in scale but consistent with a launch targeted at automotive press and early-adopter audiences rather than mass-market consumers.
In France, the campaign carried particular weight. The Mégane E-TECH Electric is presented as a Made in France product, manufactured within Renault's ElectriCity industrial hub — a cluster of northern French factories that Renault has positioned as the backbone of its electric vehicle production ambitions. That geographic anchoring gave the #NewMegane campaign a dual purpose: a product reveal for global audiences and a statement of industrial sovereignty for the French market specifically. Arnaud Belloni, Global Chief Marketing Officer at Renault, described the vehicle as "the first model of the Renaulution," as reported by Renault Group Media. The campaign therefore functions less as a traditional product advertisement and more as a brand manifesto, signalling Renault's decisive turn toward genetically electric vehicles and away from its long-standing voitures à vivre identity.
Renault entered the 2021 Munich Motor Show carrying the pressure of a difficult commercial period. According to Media Renault, Renault Group's global sales reached approximately 2.7 million vehicles in 2021, a decline of around 4.5 percent from 2020, with third-quarter 2021 global sales falling 24.4 percent year-over-year as the semiconductor crisis constrained output across the automotive industry. Against that backdrop, the #NewMegane campaign served a strategic function beyond product awareness: it was designed to reframe Renault's identity at a moment of structural vulnerability.
The strategic insight driving the campaign was captured by Laurent Aliphat, Brand Content Director at Renault, who told Touchpoint News on 7 September 2021: "We wanted to create a campaign that inspired enthusiasm for an immediate and exciting future." That framing — enthusiasm, immediacy, excitement — was a deliberate pivot from the reassuring, everyday warmth of the historic voitures à vivre positioning that Publicis had helped build over a partnership stretching back to 1963, representing roughly 58 years of creative continuity by the time of this campaign, according to reporting by The Drum and AdForum.
The competitive context was direct. As noted by InsideEVs in September 2021, the Mégane E-TECH Electric debuted alongside the Volkswagen ID.3 as one of the defining compact electric vehicles of the IAA2021 show, with automotive press observing that the Renault would not match the Volkswagen on range specifications. Stellantis, through its Peugeot e-208 and Opel Corsa-e lines, represented a further domestic competitor in the French electric vehicle segment. By anchoring the campaign to ElectriCity and Made in France credentials, Publicis Conseil positioned Renault's offer around industrial heritage and design innovation rather than competing directly on range figures — a strategically sound choice given where the product sat in the specification landscape at launch.
The #NewMegane film is structured as a reveal event document, blending motor show atmosphere with brand manifesto rhetoric. Publicis Conseil conceived the work as a vehicle for Renault's Nouvelle Vague positioning — a term the brand uses to signal a new wave of design, technology, and industrial ambition — giving the film a tone closer to a brand statement than a conventional product commercial.
The creative approach draws on the theatrical energy of the IAA Mobility setting in Munich, using the motor show stage as both physical backdrop and symbolic context. The launch event on 6 September 2021 provided Publicis with live visual material that tied the campaign directly to an internationally credible automotive platform, lending the film an air of industry authority that a studio-produced spot alone could not have generated. The hashtag architecture — #NewMegane, #IAA2021, #ElectriCity, #ETECHelectric — was woven into the campaign's distribution logic from the outset, designed to aggregate conversation across social platforms and connect Renault's reveal to the broader IAA2021 media moment.
The language of the film foregrounds technological optimism and sustainability, invoking concepts of a complete electrical ecosystem, energy and data services, and production-to-recycling responsibility. These themes position the Mégane E-TECH Electric not as a single model but as proof of a systemic commitment to electric mobility. Production credits for the #NewMegane campaign are not publicly documented beyond the confirmed agency attribution to Publicis Conseil and the brand-side involvement of Laurent Aliphat as Brand Content Director and Arnaud Belloni as Global Chief Marketing Officer, both cited in coverage by Touchpoint News and Renault Group Media respectively. The film's primary distribution channel was Renault Group's YouTube presence, supplemented by the brand's owned social network, with additional context available through Events Renault.
No verified performance data beyond platform metadata for the #NewMegane campaign is publicly available, and no sales lift, brand-tracking shifts, or campaign reach figures were disclosed by Renault or Publicis Conseil. According to archive metadata, the film recorded 23,651 views, 169 likes, and 19 comments on YouTube — numbers that reflect the targeted, press-and-enthusiast audience typical of a motor show reveal film rather than a mass-market broadcast campaign.
The most meaningful downstream indicator on record is commercial rather than communicative. As reported by cardealermagazine.co.uk, Renault confirmed that orders for the All-New Mégane E-Tech Electric would open in February 2022, with sales beginning in March 2022 — a timeline that positioned the #NewMegane campaign as the opening act of a longer commercial sequence rather than a standalone conversion driver. No awards could be verified for the campaign across major industry programmes including Cannes Lions, the Effie Awards, D&AD, The One Show, the Clio Awards, the Webby Awards, or WARC Awards. No trade-press critical reviews were identified in Campaign, Ad Age, Adweek, The Drum, or Contagious.
Structurally, the campaign achieves coherence between its platform choice — a live motor show unveil filmed and distributed as owned social content — and its stated ambition of inspiring enthusiasm for an electric future. The ElectriCity and Made in France narratives give the film a differentiated anchor in the French market, where industrial provenance carries genuine resonance with consumers and press alike. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 63 out of 100, reflecting solid strategic alignment and clear brand positioning offset by limited measurable reach and the absence of any independently verified performance outcomes.
The #NewMegane campaign is a 2021 automotive film by Publicis Conseil that unveiled the All-New Mégane E-TECH Electric at the IAA Mobility show in Munich. It positions the compact electric car as the first model of Renault's Renaulution strategy and a statement of French electric vehicle manufacturing through the ElectriCity hub.
Renault launched the #NewMegane campaign on 6 September 2021 at the IAA Mobility show in Munich, Germany. The film was distributed through Renault Group's YouTube channel and official social media platforms under the hashtags #NewMegane and #IAA2021, targeting automotive press and electric vehicle enthusiasts in France and internationally.
The Mégane E-TECH Electric is a high-tech compact electric car unveiled by Renault in 2021 as the first model of its Renaulution strategy. ElectriCity is Renault's northern French industrial hub where the vehicle is manufactured, giving the campaign a Made in France identity central to Renault's positioning in the French market.
Publicis Conseil created the #NewMegane campaign for Renault. The agency has maintained a creative relationship with Renault since 1963, representing approximately 58 years of continuity by the time of the 2021 campaign, according to reporting by The Drum and AdForum. Laurent Aliphat served as Brand Content Director on the Renault side.
No awards have been verified for the #NewMegane campaign. A review of major industry programmes — including Cannes Lions, the Effie Awards, D&AD, The One Show, the Clio Awards, the Webby Awards, and WARC Awards — returned no confirmed entries or wins. No trade-press reviews were identified in Campaign, Ad Age, Adweek, The Drum, or Contagious.
The Mégane E-TECH Electric went on sale in March 2022, with orders opening in February 2022, as reported by cardealermagazine.co.uk. The #NewMegane campaign, launched at IAA2021 in September 2021, therefore served as the opening phase of a commercial sequence that concluded with the vehicle's market arrival roughly six months later.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
