How Spoticar Turns Used-Car Fear Into a Creative Franchise Across Europe
Spoticar's 'Don't Be Brave. Be Smart.' is a 2025 European automotive campaign that uses cinematic genre storytelling — horror, adventure, and thriller — to position the Stellantis used-car brand as the rational, trustworthy alternative to the anxiety of buying a second-hand vehicle without professional guidance.
Spoticar is Stellantis' dedicated used-vehicle retail brand, operating across European and international markets. The campaign launched on April 6 and 7, 2025, with an initial rollout in France and Italy before expanding to a geographic footprint of 14 European and international markets, according to Media Stellantis. The creative work comprises three films: 'The Tomb' and 'The Vikings' arrived at launch, while a third film, 'Haunted House,' is planned for release around Halloween 2025, per media.stellantis.com. The three-film structure gives the campaign deliberate longevity, functioning less as a single advertising moment and more as an evolving creative franchise.
The campaign was created by agency 777, a French-Italian joint venture formed through the merger of Herezie and Armando Testa — two agencies with strong creative lineages in France and Italy respectively. Production was handled by Very Content and La Pac, with direction by Tom Green, known for his screen work on 'Misfits' and 'Monsters 2: The Dark Continent.' The strategic objective, as documented by media.stellantis.com, centres on strengthening brand liking, awareness, and perceived consumer trust in the Spoticar proposition. In a category where consumer hesitation around used vehicles remains a persistent barrier, particularly across the French and Italian markets, the campaign frames the impulsive, uninformed purchase decision — not the used car itself — as the real risk. Clapboard Score for this campaign: 68/100.
Spoticar enters the used-car market at a moment of structural expansion across Europe. The global used-car market is a growing market, with multiple research organisations projecting sustained annual growth through the early 2030s — Fortune Business Insights estimates a compound annual growth rate of 6.43% through 2034, while GM Insights places the figure at 4.4% through 2035. Within this broader context, European consumers are navigating a marketplace that combines increasing vehicle complexity, rising new-car prices, and persistent trust deficits in private and informal used-car transactions.
The strategic insight behind 'Don't Be Brave. Be Smart.' is precise. Consumer fear in the used-car category is not primarily about the vehicles themselves — it is about the decision-making process. Buyers who purchase without certification, inspection, or professional backing expose themselves to financial and mechanical risk. Agency 777 translates this insight into genre language: the horror film protagonist who walks toward the noise in the dark becomes a direct analogy for the used-car buyer who skips professional verification. The campaign does not sell a car. It sells the intelligence of choosing Spoticar over the alternatives.
In France and Italy — two of Europe's largest automotive retail markets — Spoticar competes directly against established used-car platforms including AutoScout24, which operates across European markets with significant digital reach, and Aramis Auto, a France-based certified used-car group with a comparable multi-brand proposition. By leaning into genre filmmaking rather than price-led messaging, Spoticar and 777 differentiate on emotional intelligence rather than transactional argument. This positions the brand closer to a lifestyle or entertainment property than a conventional automotive retailer, a deliberate strategic elevation supported by the campaign's cinematic production values and its planned multi-film rollout across multinational Europe.
Tom Green directed the 'Don't Be Brave. Be Smart.' campaign for Spoticar. Green brings a background in genre screen work — his credits include 'Misfits' and 'Monsters 2: The Dark Continent' — and that experience is legible in the campaign's construction. Each film commits fully to its chosen genre register rather than winking at the audience, a discipline that separates the work from the category's more self-conscious attempts at humour or irony.
Production was executed by Very Content and La Pac, per media.stellantis.com, and the creative leadership at agency 777 was substantial in its depth. Léna Monceau and Julia Deshayes served as Executive Creative Directors, with Rodolphe Pinta as Creative Director and Laura Lefebvre as Copywriter. Romain Bruneau led the agency account, supported by Pierre Thienot as Account Manager and Andréa Stillacci as Agency Co-Chairman. On the client side, Alexandre Fils, Global Marketing Director at Spoticar, and Pauline Martinez, Senior Manager for Brand Content and Media at Spoticar, guided the strategic direction of the work, as documented by packshotmag.com and media.stellantis.com.
The three-film architecture is itself a creative decision with strategic consequence. 'The Tomb' and 'The Vikings' establish the campaign's genre grammar at launch across France and Italy, while the deferred release of 'Haunted House' — timed to Halloween 2025 — ensures that the creative platform remains active and contextually relevant through the second half of the year. This sequencing reflects an understanding that genre entertainment has seasonal rhythms, and that a horror-adjacent campaign carries natural amplification potential when deployed during a culturally primed moment. The creative platform, in this sense, is not merely a set of films. It is a repeatable format that can expand across time, markets, and genre conventions as Spoticar continues its rollout across multinational Europe.
Spoticar's 'Don't Be Brave. Be Smart.' generated a reported 17% increase in contacts and leads sent to Spoticar's dealer network during 2025, according to media.stellantis.com. The same source reports that the campaign strengthened key brand indicators including consumer liking, awareness, and perceived trust — three metrics that are structurally significant for a used-car brand whose core proposition depends on buyer confidence.
No awards have been recorded for this campaign at Cannes Lions, the Effies, The One Show, D&AD, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC as of the time of writing. The absence of award recognition does not diminish the campaign's commercial signal: a 17% uplift in dealer leads is a direct revenue-adjacent outcome, not a brand sentiment proxy, and it demonstrates that the genre-film strategy connected with audiences in both France and Italy at a transactional level.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness rests on several reinforcing decisions. The three-film format sustains presence across a longer calendar window than a single-execution campaign would permit. The genre approach generates earned attention and shareability in markets — France and Italy — where automotive advertising typically defaults to rational product demonstration. And the 14-market geographic ambition signals that Stellantis views the 'Don't Be Brave. Be Smart.' platform as a scalable asset across multinational Europe, not a local experiment. For Spoticar, a brand still building recognition relative to longer-established used-car platforms, that structural durability may prove more valuable than any single performance metric.
'Don't Be Brave. Be Smart.' is a 2025 Spoticar campaign created by agency 777. It uses cinematic horror and adventure genre films to position Spoticar as the rational, trustworthy choice for used-car buyers in France, Italy, and across 14 European and international markets, launching on April 6 and 7, 2025.
Agency 777 created the campaign. 777 is a French-Italian joint venture formed through the merger of Herezie and Armando Testa. Director Tom Green, known for 'Misfits' and 'Monsters 2: The Dark Continent,' helmed the films, which were produced by Very Content and La Pac, according to media.stellantis.com and packshotmag.com.
The campaign launched initially in France and Italy on April 6 and 7, 2025. It subsequently rolled out across 14 European and international markets, per media.stellantis.com. France and Italy served as the primary launch markets given Spoticar's strongest retail network presence and agency 777's French-Italian creative roots.
The campaign generated a 17% increase in contacts and leads to Spoticar's dealer network in 2025, according to media.stellantis.com. It also strengthened brand liking, awareness, and perceived consumer trust. No major industry awards from Cannes Lions, the Effies, or D&AD have been recorded for the campaign as of publication.
The campaign comprises three films. 'The Tomb' and 'The Vikings' launched in April 2025 across France and Italy. A third film, 'Haunted House,' is planned for release around Halloween 2025, per media.stellantis.com, extending the campaign's creative platform across a longer calendar window in multinational Europe.
Agency 777 is a French-Italian creative agency formed through the merger of Herezie, a Paris-based independent agency, and Armando Testa, a prominent Italian creative group. Together they created Spoticar's 'Don't Be Brave. Be Smart.' campaign, combining creative expertise across France, Italy, and multinational European markets for the 2025 automotive push.
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