The Auto Marketing Blog

Who Knew Headlights Could Be So Cool?

2012-01-27T06:14:00.000-08:00

The Super Bowl is quickly approaching and we are starting to see the ads show up online. One of the more entertaining examples is Audi's latest featuring the S7 and campfire party full of vampires.
One of the more difficult tasks of a marketing team is finding creative ways to make keyless entry, moonroofs and headlights interesting as part of a larger marketing campaign. Featuring something pretty much every car in your segment has is not the most compelling product advantage, but there it exists in the Creative Brief... HD Headlamps.
Audi's creative team had some fun with a rather mundane feature. Cue the 80s Echo and the Bunnymen song and add a group of attractive college aged Twilight-esque party-goers then find your creative hook that brings it all to an entertaining, unexpected end.
Brilliant. Nice work Audi.

Toyota What the--?!

2012-01-04T14:08:00.000-08:00

There are some things I just do not get. Perhaps it's more about turning 40 years old in about a month or the fact that I haven't read a comic book in 25 years? Whatever the reason, the latest co-branding content marketing concept from Toyota makes no sense to me and in fact leaves a painful grating sound in my ears that is sure to annoy me for the next hour.

What I'm talking about is a video content collaboration between the Toyota Yaris and Marvel's What the--?! which is Marvel's self parody comic book.

Perhaps that is what's so annoying about the content. It is self-deprecating parody from the comic book company instead of someone else mocking them. Add the self-mockery with some automotive brand advertising and you get something quite odd. Leaving one YouTube watcher to state the obvious: "I like these but kinda weird."

So what do you think? Are you a fan of Marvel's What the--!? and I'm not the target here so I'm missing what's cool about this?

Though I do like their mocking of Cleveland (especially after Cleveland mocked Detroit.)

Chevy's Virtual Arcade of Good Times

2011-12-31T07:41:00.000-08:00

As I predicted back when Hyundai followed the latest trend in outdoor installation marketing, Chevy took their projection marketing shot with a cool claw game to Hollywood Boulevard's Roosevelt Hotel to promote the Chevy Spark.

This installation used projection imagery but with an added user participation twist. People could interact with the projection using a large Chevy logo joystick and see if they could grab a Spark. It is a great play on the projection concept since it combines the awe of projection marketing, which is relatively new, with the fun of playing a game right on the street for all to see.

I have to admit, I would've loved a try at Chevy's Claw Game since I never win at the arcade version and here I could play without the constant loss of quarters and for a free chance to win a car.

Gaming is a large part of the Chevy Spark's introduction. If you missed your chance to play claw, there is a site called LetsDoThis.com that features all kinds of personal stunts people can submit for a chance to also win a car.

Chevy Goes Doritos

2011-12-29T06:08:00.000-08:00

It appears Chevy is doing a version of Doritos Crash The Superbowl contest where video contestants can enter their 30 second spots for a chance to win an opportunity to be part of the marketing industry's favorite game - Ad Bowl. Unfortunately for the Chevy contestants the top prize is $10,000, not the potential for $1 million like the orange chip maker is doing; though, the million dollars is awarded only if the commercial "is awarded one of the top 3 spots (including ties) according to the USA TODAY Ad Meter rankings.

The Doritos campaign to win a commercial during the Super Bowl has been going on since 2007. This is Chevy's first year. Doritos launched their original campaign on YouTube while Chevy has decided to go with MSN's website for the hosting of their Chevrolet Route 66 contest.

Chevrolet coordinated film submissions with MoFilm, a crowdsource video site that caters to film students and pro-am video producers who can enter contests from a variety of top brands across the world. MoFilm and Chevrolet received over 200 video submissions from the MoFilm site and then curated that list to 30 top finalists that people can vote and share from the MSN website.

It makes sense doing the voting from the MSN site, since MoFilm doesn't get the large general market traffic like MSN or a YouTube does. Of course, if Chevy continues this contest for multiple years perhaps it too can have the elaborate experience Doritos now has with CrashTheSuperBowl.com.

Currently an ad called "Keys" featuring various keys and what they may or may not go to is leading. It feels very much like something Chevy's own ad agency could have created for the current Chevy Runs Deep campaign. Of course one wonders why Chevy is even doing a crowdsourced commercial? Isn't this idea a bit dated and it feels more copycat than original after years of UGC ad contests. Perhaps Chevy's "happy with them in general" agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners issues go deeper than just some lack of "consistency"?

I'm personally voting for "Miss Van Der Volt!" It's so odd it is endearing and well a certain madman thinks it's worthy of a vote.

Fiat Sexes Up American Automotive Marketing

2011-12-26T07:50:00.000-08:00

For the most part American automotive advertising has lost its sex appeal, fortunately or unfortunately the Italians have arrived with Fiat and are bringing back patent-leather clad models like Natasha Poly in the new Fiat Gucci print ads and with a sexually infused TV ad featuring Romanian model Catrinel Menghia.

I personally ran across the Gucci print ad at a hair salon looking through Details magazine. It certainly is a fitting ad placement and Natasha Poly definitely catches ones' interest immediately and well isn't getting noticed a good initial reaction? Of course just getting noticed only benefits the marketing if the reaction is positive.

Depending on your point-of-view, a top model leaning seductively across a car can be good or bad. The good is obvious when tastefully done. The bad however is a bit more complex. Honestly, cars with scantily clad women conjure up Snap-On Tool calendars more than tasteful advertising. However, I think Fiat gets away with this because...well because they are Italian. You kind of expect it. I'm doubtful someone like Ford or Nissan could pull this off.

My favorite quote from the Gucci ad creators is "Poly embodies the essence of travelling in style and living life at full speed." Okay, but doesn't 'life at full speed' sound a bit like fast cars, fast women?

The other ad featuring the Abarth is quite possibly my favorite commercial of 2011. It's sexy, fun, and demonstrates the passion many of us feel when we see a car that inspires automotive lust or what an old high school friend of mine once deemed as an "auto orgasm."

Whatever you personally feel about the launch of Fiat in the US, it definitely is bringing sexy back to American automotive advertising. One wonders if others will follow or will this just be something those Italians do? Time will tell.

The Germans Wish You a Happy Holidays

2011-12-23T08:32:00.000-08:00

Everyone is doing their take on the Holiday celebration. While Lexus ties giant red bows on IS sedans, the German car companies are celebrating the holidays in a variety of ways. Volkswagen had some fun with their Facebook fans asking them to share their favorite VW-Themed Holiday photo.

BMW is having fun featuring the new M5 that is on its way to the US soon. They decided to create "The Fastest Christmas Card in the World" where they sit an illustrator next to performance driver Urs Inauen, or "swiss stuntman" as his website refers to him.

The ad is a great example of appealing to your target audience with some custom web content. It's a simple idea: new M5 + race track + holiday = a ridiculous mess.

Mercedes-Benz created a 17 red car salute celebrating Christmas in their latest ad with an all red display for the holiday. Unfortunately, they don't make a red G550 so they shared the red peel coat paint job the marketing team needed to complete the red lineup. The video shows the excitement that goes into painting a SUV. If you don't have time to watch the video just imagine 10 seconds of Pimp My Ride without 40 speakers and gobs of fiberglass.

Audi decided to mock holiday tradition this year with its ad featuring boomer parents taking their son's new Audi A6 for a joy ride right as he arrives home.

It's a bit dull and lacks some of the fun of recent Audi ads, but this critique seems a bit harsh though I do get the blogger's point. Christmas is about family, not superficial opulence. It is a luxury car ad so opulence is expected.

What are some of your favorite holiday ads from the automotive industry, past or present?

Autoweek Launches Car Show at Historic Detroit Garage

2011-12-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

I really like the work Autoweek is doing upping its content game on digital and now on TV with a new show Autoweek's Vinsetta Garage that launches January 3rd at 8:30pm EST on the Velocity network (formerly Discovery HD Theater.)

The new show features Courtney Hansen from TLC's Overhaulin' and several other auto related shows and appearances. I had a chance to meet Courtney briefly at The Woodward Dream Cruise last summer in Detroit and spend sometime at the gutted out Vinsetta Garage where Autoweek hosted a Dream Cruise party that day.

The Garage is an automotive icon. For years, I'd drive down Woodward Avenue always looking to see what classic cars would be in the lot. Being a former 1965 Mustang owner, I'd always perk up when a classic Mustang or classic roadster (other love) was there.

The Vinsetta Garage owner sold it early this year. It is the oldest garage west of the Mississippi and many were wondering what would become of the place. That's when Autoweek's Curt Catallo and Crain Communications' KC Crain bought the garage to turn it into a restaurant.

I'm not sure what's going on with the restaurant news that broke in April, but for now Autoweek will be hosting their new show Vinsetta Garage from the place that shares the show's name.

It's great to see a host of automotive shows arrive recently including Adam Carolla's Car Show and BBC's Top Gear America. After years of only having Motorweek on PBS, it is refreshing to see some more enthusiast focused shows.

Find out more on the Vinsetta Garage website or checkout this teaser video.

In full disclosure, I did get a free burger and beer at Woodward Dream Cruise earlier this year. Is that covered under FCC Blogger Disclosure rules? Edible swag counts I suppose. ;)

Ford Ad Enters the 2012 Presidential Primary (Sort Of)

2011-12-12T06:38:00.000-08:00

I can't recall ever seeing an automotive ad get the political campaign treatment, but there is always a first. Last week Ron Paul's campaign decided to use the same visual and audio style of the current Ford F-150 truck campaign.

Unfortunately, Ron Paul apparently didn't pony up the bucks or got turned down by Dennis Leary who does the voiceover for the F-150 ads. That aside the Ron Paul ad is definitely borrowing heavily from the Ford ads.

Take a look. Here's one of the F-150 ads:

Here's Ron Paul's ad:

And as if that wasn't enough, here is Conan O'Brien mocking the Ron Paul ad:

If only Ford would throw in a rusty pipe, I might consider a F-150...

Badge Me! Ford Enables Online Pride

2011-11-27T07:48:00.000-08:00

Ford recently launched a new social media badge program. A what? Technically they are called "Online Badges" according to Ford's Facebook page. The badges are images that Ford fans can use to identify themselves with Ford products, history, personal connection, or affinity for the brand.

People select badges where they can download the badge image which can be used as a Facebook profile image, this is pretty normal behavior from what I've seen the past few weeks, or one can share their badge by posting to a major social network like Facebook, Twitter, and even Google+.

Scott Monty, Ford's Head of Social Media, recently shared on The Bean Cast marketing podcast that the current badge program is just the first phase of a larger effort.

The larger effort becomes apparent after selecting a badge where users are asked to join Ford Social. Access provides the following according to the Facebook application: "you'll get exclusive insider goods: access to contests, games, vehicle reveals and way more."

So what is Ford Social? At first it is a redesign of the former Ford Story website, but that's just part of the change. According to a post on the site:

Ford Social isn’t just a new name and a new look. It’s an innovative program that will cross all kinds of platforms, online and offline. In short, we’re on a mission to celebrate the people who love Ford.

Back to the badges.

I just want to know where is the "I Drove One" badge? Fortunately, Ford thought of that angle too. When clicking on a badge you can select whether you currently own one or not; though, clicking no doesn't really mean you were previous owner, but rather is an opportunity for them to sell you on becoming an owner. Take for instance clicking "no" on "Own one?" on the Fusion badge. It tells you, "You want to know the cure to this so-called 'sedan envy?' It’s called DEALERSHIP."

Okay, not exactly the most compelling call to action ever, but certainly one way to say here's how to own one.

Lincoln MKS I'll Never Forget the Memories We Shared

2011-11-18T13:47:00.001-08:00

MKS was my first product launch when I joined Team Detroit back in 2007. It's been 4 years since we all worked diligently to launch the Lincoln MKS reveal way back then. Seeing a banner ad promoting the MKS today caused me to reflect on how monumental that project was.

The MKS back then was the beginning of the new design direction and Lincoln's first step away from its Reach Higher brand campaign.

Today's Lincoln MKS reveal shows a car that's evolved, gracefully. The new design looks a bit more elegant, a bit more aggressive - particularly the hood, and loaded with more technology. It's a nice refresh.

Some changes are happening since 2007 with digital marketing. Lincoln now has a Facebook and YouTube icon on the new microsite, including a large tile on the bottom right inviting people to "Like Lincoln MKS on Facebook."

Social is definitely a part of the equation. The rest of the content is typical reveal fare: large beauty shots, information about new features, 360 views, and several video clips explaining key changes to the car.

Chevy Is Featured in WSJ Klout Story

2011-11-02T00:23:00.000-07:00

Chevrolet gets some attention in the Wall Street Journal's video showcasing several brands using the online influencer ranking tool Klout. Chevy did a Klout Perk earlier this year giving some people in social media a few weekend with a Volt.

Unfortunately, the video doesn't share any results of what comes from participating in a Klout Perk and if that truly leads to any goals a company has when going this route in social media. In other words, did someone tweeting about the Volt, influence purchase or increase awareness in a way that was worth giving the car to said influencer for a few days?

If you are interested in improving your own personal score, you might be interested in a blog dedicated solely to that activity and possibly you too can get a car for the weekend or some cooking tongs from Bravo simply for having a high score.

Jennifer Lopez Is this Generation's Celine Dion

2011-10-11T23:13:00.000-07:00

It's football season and that means my time watching automotive ads on TV has taken a dramatic shift upwards. One of the more frequent ads that come across the screen is the Fiat 500 spot featuring Jennifer Lopez. It features her song "Papi" with a storyline of every male in the city comes chasing after Jennifer as she drives a pearl white 500 with cuts of copy on black screen with white lettering reading:

Like the car?
Go online
Like JLO?
Get in line

At this point Jennifer is lifted out of the car's roof and starts dancing with all of the men laying down in the street. Why are they laying down? I don't know. Exhaustion after chasing a car? Possibly blown away by her hip shaking dance moves?

All of this dancing and celebrity awe reminds of a time past when Celine Dion was the female musician of choice for the Chrsyler brands. She promoted the Chrysler Lebaron and Plymouth Laser and later the Sebring, Town & Country, Crossfire and the rest of the Chrysler portfolio.

With that said, I'm looking forward to seeing more JLO. Perhaps she can takeover where Eminem left off and promote some Chrysler cars too.

Chevy Blurs the Line Between EV and Gas

2011-10-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

The Chevy Volt has been out for awhile now and unfortunately Chevy is losing the sales battle against the Nissan LEAF. Sales are a bit slow for the Volt and some of that may come from the difficult positioning challenge the marketing team has had marketing an electric vehicle that still can take gas, but isn't a hybrid.

In their latest campaign, part of the Chevy Runs Deep brand campaign, the Volt team has some fun with the confusion the car's power sources cause. "Whoa, what are you doing? Thought these were electric," exclaims a gas station customer confused by the Volt owner going to pump gas into an "electric" car.

I had a Volt for eight days in early July. There is nothing confusing about it, but there are some things a lot of people didn't understand about the car I was driving. The Volt's electric engine gets about 38-43 miles on a full charge. This pales in comparison to the 100 mile (most say it's an 80 mile) range the Nissan gets. Fortunately, I have a short commute of only 11 miles each way to work so the 40 mile range was perfect.

Also a bit confusing is the sophisticated display that informs you what your fuel economy is. It bounced from 250+ mpg to 52 mpg during my eight days of driving. The vehicle's "lifetime" fuel economy was 56 mpg. Of course this was a media car so it really wasn't my lifetime mileage.

My longest day of driving came on a Saturday when we drove from one part of town (Mesquite, TX) to the opposite part of town (Grapevine, TX) racking up 78 miles that day. In a LEAF we might of decided to skip a trip to Grapevine and save it for another day in case we pushed the car too much to its battery limits. The Volt however just cleanly transitioned from electric to gas mode with only the display sharing what was going on.

It's a difficult message for Chevy's marketing team to get across and being in the car is the real test of what driving a Volt feels like. I have to confess I really did love it and do get a bit jealous now when I see one on the road.

Power modes aside, the car had an impressive interior and I was really in love with the seats and our twin 5 year old boys loved the room in the back.

The Volt really impresses. It's not a cheap car, but cutting edge first generation technology is rarely affordable. Hopefully, simplifying the complexity of the Volt to the masses will attract more buyers.

Disclosure: I did receive the Chevy Volt for review purposes. I was given the car for eight days at no cost to me, though I did pay for gas and electricity during the time I tested it. Opinions here are my own.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: September 2011

2011-10-01T06:52:00.000-07:00

September was a fairly quiet month with only a few decent bumps in fan growth. I'm also seeing a lot less automotive fan driven ads from automotive brands. That's not to say the OEMs are not advertising on Facebook, it's just their ads are driving to the brand's website instead of a Facebook fan page. Perhaps we are seeing a move away from the importance of fan growth to drive to transaction or consideration at a brand website that hosts content relevant to purchase.

It's been awhile since we've seen a brand lose fans in the span of a month. In fact, the only time it's happened since tracking this data in April 2009 is when Infiniti had lost fans due to their over promotion of a circ de soleil event they did one month where their sponsorship team posted too many photos of acrobats to the annoyance of its fans. This September Kia dropped 8%, the largest negative drop we've seen in one month. There is nothing blatantly apparent why they had a negative fan growth, perhaps it's due to their younger audience who may have fanned the page due to their hamster Soul campaign only to unfan later once the interest waned?

Mercedes Benz is driving consumers to a social campaign they are running on Facebook. The C-Coupe Your Week contest will give 10 of its Facebook fans a C-Coupe to drive around for a week. Fans will also be featured on the Facebook page and given $2,000 and camera equipment to capture their week. Contestants must complete a form and upload a video by October 14.

Subaru's 25% increase in fans for September was the largest gain. Their push was most likely driven by their charitable campaign Share the Love Charities where fans voted on several organizations resulting in Make A Wish as the winning charity for the Facebook fans. People who purchase a car between November 19 and January 3 get to choose where to allocate $250 to one of five organizations. The campaign resulted in 183,000 likes demonstrating fans responded positively to the effort.

Finally in my evaluation of this month's fan growth several fan pages operated outside of a secured connection causing Facebook tab experiences unavaiable if a user has security settings active (use of https.) Odd because this is a fairly easy situation to get around with a good tab development team.

They're All a Little Different Just Like You

2011-09-30T08:10:00.000-07:00

A while back Toyota asked its Facebook fans and others on the web what to call the new line of Prius cars. They finally launched their first TV spots featuring the variety of cars available in the Prius lineup under the tag Toyota: Prius Goes Plural.

The new spot called "People Person" is quite interesting with a man getting ready for work built out of of several people. I say "interesting" because the ad is visually unique and catches your eye with its bright colors, light charming music, and you wonder what the man built out of men and women is doing. It's this creative interruption that makes the ad work.

Toyota ends the spot with a line, "they're all a little different just like you." The "man" separates and people scatter to each of the different Prius cars showcasing the variety for different needs based on size and energy source. It's also the first time we get to see the Prius plug-in.

It's some great work from Saatchi & Saatchi. You can also see how the ad was made.

Automotive Brands Commemorating 9/11 on Facebook

2011-09-11T08:56:00.000-07:00

I was curious what messages brands were putting out there today regarding the 10th Anniversary of 9/11. Only 15% of the 45 automotive Facebook pages I reviewed marked the day with a somber, respectful message.

The good news is that I only caught one minor spat in comments on the Mercedes Benz USA fan page where one fan said it was "an inside job." Other than that, people responded with positive appreciation or their own memory.

I definitely had a certain lens on when looking at each of the brand pages. It was just a little odd seeing the most current post promoting a new car, handbags at NY Fashion Week, or something unrelated. Of course there is the flip-side argument where brands should just leave the topic alone and let individuals have the conversation in social media.

Fortunately, the seven brands that did mention 9/11 did so with respect. There was only one slip-up by Acura who had a nice simple message, but then added a link to their home page which had nothing to do with 9/11; instead, it brought the user to the latest promotion for the "NewlyRefined 2012 TL."

Here are the status updates from Acura, Cadillac, GMC, Infiniti, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz USA, and Toyota.

Who Will Exploit 9/11 for Their Own Brand Benefit?

2011-09-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

Found this out-of-home ad from MINI. Not sure when this ad was live, but It's interesting as the 10th Anniversary of September 11th gets closer will any automakers use it as a way to promote their products or link their brand to the event.

Please share any 9/11 automaker marketing efforts you see.

Hat tip to bNet for their article: 10 Advertising Exploiting the Sept 11 Attacks to Push Their Brands

The Hamster Car Dances with Halo-Like Warriors

2011-08-29T09:26:00.001-07:00

A couple weeks ago at the Woodward Dream Cruise I overheard a couple talking with a friend of theirs after they parked their new Chrysler 200.

Friend: "So you bought the Eminem car." (laughter)

The driver, looking down at the ground: "I didn't buy it for that reason, but yeah it's the 'Eminem car.'"

Recalling the Chrysler 200 conversation, I have to wonder if Kia Soul owners get "is that the hamster car?" And does it leave people feeling pride or shame.

Good thing for Kia their young demographic probably doesn't remember much of the Richard Gere hamster/gerbil rumor.

I'm guessing most of it is pride since the campaign has been very well received and reading the YouTube comments on this latest ad shows people love and defend the hamsters.

Hat tip to AdWeek. Click here for their thoughts.

Will RFID be at Every Auto Show Display Next Year?

2011-08-11T12:30:00.000-07:00

Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) Facebook status updates are becoming the rage in social media event activations with the latest incarnation coming from Mercedes-Benz sponsorship of this year's PGA Championship in Atlanta, Georgia.

Recently Renault did something similar with RFID at an auto show last April which leaves me wondering if RFID Facebook updates are the next must have accessory for the coming 2012 auto show season? I'm willing to bet they are and with brands looking to activate what happens at an event to share in the digital world, RFID Facebook integration is a great way to extend a brand's investment in event sponsorships by reaching a person's online community too.

The question then is should the kiosks featured in the Renault and Mercedes-Benz examples be configured to support the entire event, where one can register a pass for the auto show and share across multiple brand stations? Or will an attendee after register at each brand kiosk to do whatever that brand wants the experience to be?

We'll probably see several of these RFID registration kiosks from a handful of brands; instead, of a more elegant register once with the event organizer - yeah I'm talking to you North American International Auto Show, New York Auto Show, and Los Angeles too.

No matter what happens, event planning teams across the automotive industry certainly are seeing these examples and the media coverage they are getting and will likely follow suit. So be ready to link your Facebook profile to a RFID card.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: July 2011

2011-08-04T18:58:00.001-07:00

The struggling brand smart grew more than any other brand, at least on Facebook where their global page had a 109% gain of 25,821 fans while only selling 327 cars in the United States in July. Therein lies a problem that is growing in this report. Several European brands have created USA based pages, smart being one of them. BMW, Audi, Mercedes, and Volvo all have USA pages now and perhaps it is time to modify this report to show a United States view of fan growth by brand.

My only issue with switching to the USA pages is that the USA pages have much smaller budgets, lack a lot of the organic growth that happens. Why? Because people looking for a brand's Facebook page are far more likely to click on the one with the most fans and the cleanest page name. You follow BMW, not BMW USA especially when you see all of the fans and activity on the BMW page. This is a behavior I've seen for years on Facebook and so I tend to focus on the primary brand page.

With so many USA pages, is it time to switch this report to a USA focused report, especially considering I don't track non-USA brands like Peugeot or Citroen.

Let me know your thoughts. Should I switch to this tracking the USA focused fan pages?

One other thing of note last month is Mercedes-Benz overtaking Audi's page in the race for fans. One of the big pushes for the brand is their "Mercedes-Benz & Friends" event coming August 25-28 bringing together all international official Benz clubs.

But most of the fan growth likely came from the marketing efforts of their Drive & Seek game helping to launch the all-new Mercedes C-Class Coupe. The game is centered around the player being a special agent who is trying to outsmart a security system.

Chevy Pits Its 100 Years of Cars in a Bracket Challenge

2011-07-29T07:17:00.001-07:00

Congratulations to Chevrolet as they get ready to celebrate their 100th birthday on November 3. As part of many festivities that are to happen until then, the brand developed an online experience that pits its 100 years of select models against each other. It is basically a bracket challenge where people vote for their favorite Chevrolet cars and trucks.

The 100 Years of Chevrolet website combines several social media connections with the brand where people vote by clicking a Facebook like button all to answer the age old question "What's the best Chevy of all time?" I know I wasn't asking that question either, but it is fun choosing which car or truck you like best in each round.

Most votes have a clear winner in the first round, but the 1970 Chevelle SS convertible and the 2010 Camaro are in a pretty close match with only 100 votes separating the two cars after almost 4,000 total votes in the match. Psst...I voted for the Chevelle SS.

I'm already a fan of Chevrolet on Facebook, but if you are not you need to be to cast your votes. Unfortunately, once you are a fan the experience got a little spammy after I went back to my Facebook profile since the Chevy 100 website doesn't tell you that every vote is published to your Facebook wall (see image on right.)

Other than the minor publishing to Facebook situation, and yes I get why they did it that way as it creates interest to my friends on Facebook and hopefully more traffic for Chevy's website, the experience is solid and focuses more on people's love of the current lineup and their love of Chevy's prolific automotive history.

So go and vote for your favorite Chevrolet vehicles!

Chrysler Group's Mopar Takes a Page from Ford and GM

2011-07-19T07:44:00.000-07:00

The social media road trip/rally/race/whatever is so common it’s becoming a bit cliché and in my former days listening to media companies and social agencies pitch ideas there was always some effort that involved putting celebs, comedians or everyday people into cars to share their experience across social media by giving them a car and some challenges to do.

The latest example of this model comes from Chrysler’s performance division Mopar: The event is called Moventure. Get it? They had a call for submissions for filling ten teams that would drive Chrysler division vehicles from Detroit to Golden, Colorado at the NHRA Mopar Mile High Nationals, a “full throttle drag racing series.” The team with the most points stand to win $5,000 in Mopar parts and accessories.

Each brand (Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, and Fiat) has two teams of two with challenges all along the way to the final destination, think something similar to Chevy’s SxSW Road Trip from 2010 and 2011. It’s kind of funny that my article on the Chevy event garnered a comment stating “*waits for Chrysler to emulate Ford’s Fiesta Movement, just like GM did? ;-p” Apparently the answer is July 2011, sort of.

This is coming out of the Mopar division, not the parent company, though looking how it’s being shared on twitter the Chrysler brand twitter accounts and Chrysler PR people are Retweeting content from the Mopar teams, similar to what happened with both GM and Ford events.

Fiesta Movement was very different from this model. It was 6 months with 100 cars given out that gave time for participants to build an audience. A more likely Ford use of this template was the Ford Fusion Relay Race that used similar teams on a short multi-day road trip.

The Mopar event participation is like others who have blazed this social trail. Most of the social conversation is from the teams with the brand (or agencies) supporting the conversation through Retweets and @ mentions on twitter. There is some video content too that’s being created but as you can tell (image at right) the views are pretty low even after 24 hours since posted.

I really wonder about if these events are worth all of the effort. I’m sure blog coverage is a big win for the organizers and for this Moventure contest. So far there has been zero coverage from the top two automotive blogs – AutoBlog and Jalopnik; however, there was coverage from Car & Driver, Torque News, and CNBC (they reprinted the press release verbatim.)

What is success and what is a good amount of social conversation and who it was from is rarely discussed because no one ever goes back and evaluates their effort against competitor efforts. This I know after actively following many over the years, it’s 90%+ people involved in the effort who discuss and socially share it (team members, brand, and agencies.) There is very little spillover effect unless you really invest big dollars engaging celebrities, philanthropy and market the hell out of it – think Mercedes Tweet Race – or you do something more involved like the 6-month Ford Fiesta Movement.

In full disclosure, I have some good friends that make up two of the teams on this road trip and I really do wish them well. From what I can tell they are doing what they can to generate interest and discussion about their involvement. It’s just that no one really cares, except those participating, when it comes down to it.

I’ve seen the output reports on efforts like this and everyone shows an impressive looking number of “mentions” and a summation of all the video views/comments/tweets, and then some screen-shots of blog coverage and well that’s it and off everyone goes to the next project. I expect Moventure is no different and that's not a criticism of the Mopar effort. It's more a result of how this model historically works.

Toyota Targets the Backseat Driver

2011-07-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

Here is one way to create early brand loyalty. Toyota Japan has created a game called Backseat Driver that gets your children involved in where ever you are driving and may be a good option after they've bored themselves of playing Angry Birds for the 1 millionth time in the car.

The application is available for download on iTunes.

To play the application you have to be moving because the app moves the car using your phone's GPS movements and when the car turns the car in the game turns too. I suppose you could walk your backseat drive, but sitting stationary results in a boring game.

Your child can even share their customized car on twitter, something my 5 year old twins will definitely not be doing.

It is a fun way to make driving a bit more interesting for your child and I can't wait to test how long it holds a 5 year boy's interest. We'll see.

Thanks to @SphereTrending for sharing this on Twitter.

Looking Into the Share of Voice of Volt and LEAF

2011-07-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

This blog has followed a lot of the marketing efforts of two very compelling vehicles from the past several years: The Chevy Volt and the Nissan LEAF. Both cars are currently taking charge (pun intended) in the battle for green bragging rights with consumers and now Nissan has thrown a new punch at its Chevy competitor.

The new ads feature life with gasoline fueled appliances. The ads look into the continued dependence of gasoline engines as an old technology that is far behind the times, of course most of Nissan’s own portfolio of vehicles are hence old technology, but this is about green bragging rights and Nissan showcasing its competitive advantage.

Chevy has ensconced its Volt as a fighter of “range anxiety.” Range anxiety is the uneasy feeling that one’s all-electric vehicle may run out of charge before reaching the owner’s destination. Chevy has a backup gas engine to avoid such moments of concern, of course that’s pretty expensive backup plan but thankfully both the Volt and LEAF gain from current $7,500 government incentives to offset costs.

I wanted to take a look at how performance for both of these vehicles is doing online and worked with some great people from MutualMind here in Dallas who ran some social media analytics against the two cars for the week of May 29 - June 4, just to get a peek at what is going on in the social conversation.

IMG 1: Brand Hits refer to the Nissan LEAF, Competitor Hits to the Chevy Volt

It’s interesting to see they are both neck and neck as far as coverage, mentions of the two vehicles are with the Nissan LEAF having a slight edge, but that may be due mostly to the new ad campaign that is gaining some visibility internationally since it is creatively similar to a Renault ad running in Europe.

Sentiment is where the data gets a bit more interesting. Negative sentiment for the Volt is almost two times higher than it is for the LEAF, but that’s only half of the story. Positive sentiment is 34% higher with Volt than LEAF. What's this tell us? At least in social media conversation, Volt is a more polarizing vehicle meaning people are either defending it or criticizing it.

There are some rumors circulating around GM doing an all-electric Volt (GM has denied this.) It’s highly doubtful GM would use the same vehicle name (or even the same brand Chevy) to compete more directly with Nissan’s LEAF and Ford’s coming Focus EV. Like the hybrid market, the electric-vehicle (EV) market is sure to get very competitive and not be as simple as evaluating two primary competitors.

For now though, it is interesting watching these two solutions from two big brands battle for the hearts and minds of the green crowd as we move into the Post-Prius green vehicle movement.

Later this week I'll be sharing some of my personal thoughts on the Chevy Volt after driving one several days.

Thanks to Babar Bhatti from MutualMind for providing me with some great data. For more information, please contact:

Company: Mutual Mind

Website: http://www.mutualmind.com/

MutualMind is a social media management and intelligence platform that enables businesses to monitor as well as promote brands on social networks while providing actionable analytics and insights to increase social media ROI.

MutualMind offers a platform that allows users to aggregate and analyze feedback and conversations regarding their products or services on all of the major social media platforms. While many alternatives on the market today are limited just to listening or publishing, MutualMind’s has taken its value proposition further through the ability for users to actively engage with and manage the various social media outlets.

The functionality of this platform can be used for a myriad of business applications including: measuring market receptivity to products or services, tracking consumer or political sentiment, reputation/crisis management, generating sales leads, benchmarking versus competitors, and customer relationship management to name a few.

Google+ Is More a Threat to Twitter than Facebook

2011-07-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about the latest buzz in social media and even though this article will not be talking directly about automotive I still think it is relevant here.

After a week of using Google+, I think a lot of pundits are off on who Google+’s competition is. It is not Facebook. It is Twitter. It may be Facebook someday, as Google continues to rollout more functionality and soon will launch brand pages, which will begin their pilot phase in two weeks, but for now the site really looks like a challenger to Twitter.

Let me explain.

Circles are Better Lists

Everyone is talking about Google’s Circles functionality that allows one to select which group a new person you add will exist in. People can be placed in multiple groups, for example I can add someone to my local Dallas group and in a work-related group. To me, this is an improvement over Twitter Lists where one can divide their community in an easy way and filter their “Stream” by circles, similar to how one might display a Twitter list as a feed only viewing the tweets for that group. I use lists more than I’ve ever used groups on Facebook and the intuitiveness of Google’s Circles feels like a great evolution of this functionality.

Add to Circles is More a Follow than a Friend Request

You can add anyone to a Circle who is on Google+. There is no request, the person being “circled” does not have to approve your decision to include them in your community and I’m sure we’ll see social media articles in the near future talking about the ratio of people in your circles and how many have you in their circles and if you should circle back others who circle you. Community building sounds more Twitter-like than Facebook-like to me.

Extending One’s Community is Like Watching @ Mentions

I find a lot of new people in my social sphere by seeing who people I follow on Twitter are conversing with and when it looks interesting and that person’s profile and content looks compelling I follow them on Twitter. I don’t do this on Facebook. I don’t send friend requests to people my aunt might be talking to in a comment thread or send a request to a co-worker’s high school buddy even if I think that person’s comments are interesting.

Google+ is different since I can easily add people to Circles who have common interests and it’s not as awkward as sending a friend request to someone you have never met before. Perhaps adding people to Circles will be less social as more people join and it really does become an alternative to Facebook than Twitter. Currently adding people to a Circle is a behavior that is more socially similar to a Twitter Follow action.

Hangouts are the New Hashtags

Want to join a more focused instant conversation that anyone can join and jump out of easily? Well Hangouts are for you and I’m sure we’ll see brands using this functionality in a way twitter hashtags are used. I’m guessing Hangout trivia contests to win products and weekly Hangouts will develop around specific days and times for the community to come together to discuss their shared interests.

SEO is Google+’s Silver Bullet

Like Twitter, Google+ content is publicly available on the world’s most used search engine and many are wondering how Google might change its search algorithm to benefit Google+ content. This is important to brands, publishers, content creators and others who concern themselves with things like Page Rank and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but I can guarantee you my old high school friends or family members have no idea what Page Rank and SEO are nor will they ever care. So the Google+ silver bullet may be an audience that is interested in how content better lives in search and again here is where the link to Twitter as a competitor is more apt than Facebook. Many are on Twitter trying to get better SEO and I’m sure they will also join Google+ to improve their search rankings.

The Stream

Google’s feed is called the “Stream” and it pretty much behaves like Facebook’s News Feed with the ability to add links, images, videos, or a location along with commentary plus your community can comment and +1 (similar to “Like”) your posts. This functionality is very much like Facebook today, but if people recall the evolution of Facebook’s News Feed borrowed from Twitter’s interface (and Friendster.) Sure it is more media-rich than Twitter, but this feels like Twitter on steroids and allows for conversations around a particular topic, but I agree this functionality is most like Facebook and hence why most feel Google+ is a Facebook competitor; however, I feel this is where Twitter ultimately may have evolved if Facebook hadn’t beat them to it.

Still Evolving

Google+ certainly feels more like Twitter today, because a lot of the people I’ve connected with have come from my Twitter connections than say real-life connections. That of course may change if the masses, read my mom and non-social media types, start to gravitate to Google+. Without a compelling reason to move to another social community platform for the masses, it is doubtful my mom will want to re-establish all of her connections on a new website when Facebook has years of photos, years of accepted friend requests, and years of familiarity she has come to like.

For now, Google+ isn’t replacing either Facebook or Twitter since the community is still small and invitations are slowly trickling out, but as the site gains momentum it will be interesting to see if Google+ takes time away from Twitter more than Facebook. My guess, after a short week of using it and liking it, is it may be a formidable challenger to Twitter.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: June 2011

2011-07-06T07:48:00.001-07:00

It's another million fan milestone for BMW this last month as they crossed 6 million fans and have annihilated the challenge they were receiving from Audi earlier this year. It's tough to say how much of BMW's fan growth is due to sheer brand advocacy or how much of it is due to marketing efforts from all of its International markets. What is known is that the BMW team is leveraging the behaviors of the Facebook platform in creative ways.

Take for instance the latest activation from BMW where they are showcasing their Two Originals hommage promoting the original 328i with a revised future 328i concept. Part of the effort is a Facebook application that let's their fans create their own film and personal expression that they can then share with friends. It actually gives people a reason to share. It's not just a share button next to a video or promotion asking people to simply "like" a post. This is content integration that is creative and self-expressive which is what social media is all about.

The BMW example pulls in photo content from a Facebook profile and uses that to express the person's originality. It's not too much different than a recent viral execution from Intel called the Museum of Me that also recycled a user's Facebook content for brand benefit.

Meanwhile other brands continue to buy ad units promoting their page. Of note in June were some significant ad buys from Fiat USA who seemed to have an ad pushing their fan page to me about every second or third time I logged into Facebook, oddly I've been a fan for several months. Lexus also ran some ad units that drove to their fan page which accounts for their double-digit 10% growth in June.

Mazda, Dodge and MINI also experienced some decent fan growth in June. Dodge is expanding their social presence and activating some attention to the SRT brand with its Driving SRT and SRT Track Experience fan pages. Oddly the primary Dodge fan page does not "Like" these pages. Though fan growth for Dodge is not really being driven by the SRT pages; instead, Dodge has been running ad units also promoting its brand pages last June. I did not run across media for Mazda or MINI in June, but that's not to say there was no media or promotion through other mediums like email.

Overall it was a pretty slow month in June for automotive Facebook fan pages. The latest development is Google+ in the past week and already Ford has created a page. Perhaps someday this report will be looking at Google+ Circle numbers.

Do You Have Automotive Klout?

2011-06-22T06:11:00.001-07:00

I ran across an interesting development in the online influencer news today. No I don't know what Brian Solis had for breakfast; instead, there is news today that the controversial influence score website Klout teamed up with Audi's Facebook page to create unique content only available to those fans who have enough social "influence."

I put quotes around influence because many feel, and yes I'm one of them, that Klout's scoring system is far from perfect, but I will give Klout credit in that they are trying and evolving their system in ways that are interesting and worth watching. They also are not trying to determine one's full influence, it is only a view at one's online influence which mainly focuses on social conversation and how much one talks online and one receives two-way conversation in return. It's more accurate to call it a volume score than an influencer score, but you can read a gizillion blogs on that topic.

So what is Audi doing in this? They are using the Klout engine to provide special access to content. Today's launch of the functionality is around their recent win at Le Mans. It was a great race and win from Audi. What a year and what a horrific beginning to the race that fortunately resulted in zero causalities other than a couple really expensive Audi cars.

If you have a Klout score high enough to gain special access, you will be granted the bonus of a Le Mans wallpaper to save to your computer. Wallpaper? Can't I just use Google Images and find a ton of them including some amazing pictures from the great coverage provided by blogs like QuattroWorld (props to my good friend Mike Juergens)?

Regardless of how 1996 the free wallpaper incentive feels, there is an interesting event here. Brand pages can now reward their most social media active fans. Unfortunately, it's doubtful most fans know what Klout is or how to get it. And there is a potential backlash that a brand's most hardcore Facebook page fans lack enough Klout to get special access, since they may only be active on the brand's page and not across social media.

It will be interesting to see how this develops and kudos to Audi for taking the first try at this approach. I just wish it was something cooler than a wallpaper...

NOTE: Please let me know if you tried it and failed regarding your own Klout score, I would love to know how much one needs to score to get access.

UPDATE: There is no qualifying Klout score, at least for the current promotion today. Perhaps that will change, but according the Audi Facebook wall team "everyone gets one." You can see their Facebook post on the topic and fan feedback here. Most of it is very positive, no surprise. Here is an image of Audi's wall team's response to a fan asking about the score question:

I don't feel as "special" anymore. ;)

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: April and May 2011

2011-06-07T19:33:00.000-07:00

I've been tracking Facebook automotive fans since November 2009 and have never missed a month of data until last month. Unfortunately my early May was extremely busy and I overlooked capturing Facebook fan numbers that month. What is here is fan growth for the months of April and May 2011 combined.

Let’s get to what happened in April and May for automotive brands on Facebook. MINI had the strongest growth over the past 60 days. MINI has been activating user participation with their simple, but elegant idea of “Getting Billboarded” where fans
were able to show their image on a MINI billboard in Berlin. Fans were given the opportunity to share their image from Facebook and those in Berlin were given a photo booth to shoot a picture that would appear on a real billboard. It was a great way to create out of home media with social media. Plus participants were able to save their billboards as images that they could share or use as Facebook profile pictures, but they weren't doing this to only engage but rather to win their very own MINI car.

MINI is also activating their global fan base as a lot of its fans are coming from many countries. This is creating some significant separation on this analysis as brands like Audi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Porsche are also all activating their global fan base and that is why they are growing at such a stride compared to brands with less of a global impact. Plus all of these brands are aspirational, which helps organic growth dramatically on Facebook, since people fan luxury, high social value brands.

The other brand with some significant growth is Mazda. It’s an interesting time to see some big growth from Mazda since they do not have a vehicle launch during this time.

Mazda is doing their best to increase engagement with their fans and are leveraging their other social properties on the Facebook fan page. They added YouTube and Flickr tabs and are actively promoting content through wall posts. They have also implemented a #MiataMonday idea that asks open questions to their fans.

Mazda is also doing a “Flickr Photo Spotlight” where they are actively looking for Mazda photos on Flickr and then asking photographers to join a Mazda photo Owners Group. Then they are choosing photos to feature on the Mazda Facebook fan page. See the image at left showing one such engagement from Mazda with a Flickr user. This is a great example of showcasing owner enthusiasm and it also brings some fame from the brand to the owner and does it in a simple, respectful way. Bravo to Mazda for being creative in how they leverage multiple social media channels.

One quick thought...

Most automotive ads I’m seeing on Facebook seem to be driving less and less to the brand’s fan page. Most automotive ad buys on the site are sending people to the brand’s website. This makes me wonder if brands are not seeing significant value in growing fans and instead are finding value in Facebook’s ability to segment ad buys by consumer interests and bringing people to brand pages where there is abundantly more information about the products than the brand’s Facebook fan experience.

We are all learning what works and does not work so well on Facebook. After seeing massive ad buys the past couple years from automotive brands spending media to grow fans and now not seeing that behavior; it causes one to wonder if fan growth is not THE metric of success as it once was, that said this blog will still track it to see how a brand’s audience grows.

Jaguar Tries Sponsored Stories on Facebook

2011-06-02T07:17:00.001-07:00

Facebook launched the ability for brands to sponsor posts and this morning I caught one example from Jaguar who decided to shine some attention on a recent Forbes magazine review of its Jaguar XJL.

The ad shows up as a "Sponsored Story" from Interactive Jaguar, which is the Facebook fan page for the Jaguar brand. When you click the story you are brought to the Forbes website to read the review.

In a bit of media buying hilarity the Forbes article that Jaguar is sponsoring on Facebook is being heavily sponsored by Hyundai and BMW with the two competitors (well I guess only one is a direct competitor) advertising on the Forbes website. Fortunately the review is about Jaguar and does offer some great thoughts on the XJL for readers.

Fiat 500 Reaches the Hip Movie Geek

2011-05-31T14:26:00.000-07:00

It's always interesting to see how a low-volume brand uses its marketing dollars when launching a new product. In this case, we have Fiat which is re-entering the U.S. market for the first time after a 27-year brand absence.

As part of their return, Fiat is sponsoring one of The Onion's properties called "The A.V. Club Pop Pilgrims." The popular satire publication The Onion is bringing more content opportunities as it expands its own brand and the A.V. Club is one extension. The A.V. Club "features real interviews, reviews, and other entertainment-related articles," according to their website.

It's pretty safe to say that the A.V. Club is reaching a young, hip audience and is most likely demographically aligned to Fiat's intended audience. Fiat's integration includes a re-skinned website (see image above) and pre-roll ad units embedded within the A.V. Club's Pop Pilgrim episodes.

Also of note is the physical use of an all-new Fiat 500 used for the video shoots where the A.V. Club drives around in 500 to get to all its video vignettes.

Overall it's a decent integration for Fiat and there are some nice touches including some summary parts of the video where the Fiat branding is very clear and unforgettable. It's a great way to expose the car to Fiat's target and I'm sure aspirational audiences.

Promo Magazine Guest Article

2011-05-03T08:38:00.001-07:00

I had the opportunity to do a guest article for WOMMA's (Word of Mouth Marketing organization) PROMO magazine. I covered some of the things we are doing at AT&T to tighten up our Facebook presence and why that matters on a platform like Facebook. Also, I should add that automotive brand Acura did a similar effort late last year as they moved to consolidate all of their vehicle fan pages under the one Acura brand fan page, a wise decision in my humble opinion.

Take a look if you are curious what I do in my day job leading social media at AT&T. Click here to read the article: "AT&T’s Social Exec Talks About Focusing its Facebook Presence"

A Few Automotive Brands Are Cruising Empire Avenue

2011-05-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

There is a social network, or is it a social exchange, that is gaining traction after Jeremiah Owyang, who writes the Web Strategist blog, wrote a post a couple weeks ago titled “Empire Avenue Provides Social Gaming Opportunities –and Challenges– for Brands.” At the time of the article only a couple big brands were on the site including Intel and Audi, since the article Ford and Toyota have joined too (in full disclosure, so has AT&T, the brand I head social media for.)

What Is Empire Avenue? I’m going to let Jeremiah answer that one since he did such a brilliant job already:

“Empire Avenue is a social game. Each user is valued at a set share price around $9 “Eaves” (their currency) and the value will increase as others purchase their shares, or as the user does social behaviors on other sites, and also participates in Empire Avenue such as actions, unlocking features, or dividends from virtual goods or ownership in other members. As users gain more net worth, they’re able to purchase virtual goods, on a quest to be the richest player in the game. The net result? This is a highly addictive experience that is similar to stock market gaming of your own social network.”

Or if you want to understand the behaviors of a user on Empire Avenue, tech blogger Chris Pirillo demonstrates his enthusiasm in this video.

I should note there are two camps on what’s the point of Empire Avenue. One camp feels it is a site that evokes game theory and creates an interesting social dynamic for those who want to play the game. The other camp is more interested in Empire Avenue being viewed as a competitor to online influence ranking sites like Klout. This is the more controversial camp,, since whenever the word influence is evoked in social media circles everyone goes bonkers about what defines influence. For that perspective, checkout Stowe Boyd’s blog post and comments.

So what are the three automotive brands Ford, Audi and Toyota doing on Empire Avenue? Let’s take a look.

All three have their logos represented and have completed their page bios. Toyota’s bio is brief, “We are Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc.” While Audi brings some of its campaign language and promotion of other social website efforts into its bio, “Audi of America. Truth in Engineering. And now trading on Empire Avenue. Do you know #bolddesign? We're looking for Bold in your city. Help us build out Bold Design in America. http://apps.facebook.com/audi-bold-design/?x=tweet. The all-new Audi 2012 A7.”

Ford is the clear leader in the reciprocity behavior. As of this morning Audi has invested in 12 others on the site where Ford has invested in 118 accounts on Empire Avenue. Toyota who recently joined Empire Avenue six days ago has yet to invest in anyone. Why do I point this statistic out? It demonstrates a level of engagement. Brands, like individuals on the site, have a few touch points including shout outs on a person’s wall, discussion within communities, and purchasing shares in others. Buying shares back creates a conversation on Empire Avenue more so than say following someone back on Twitter; though, the concept is fairly similar. Here a purchase back is an opportunity to thank that person for investing in your brand and demonstrates goodwill.

The purchase of shares is a big deal on Empire Avenue, like stocks in real-life, investments increase share price and also demonstrates a confidence in a good investment. Brands that reciprocate back by investing in others create opportunities to engage. Consider the image at left showing Ford buying shares in others with another shareholder commending the purchase. Without buy backs, the opportunity for further conversation is limited. Sometimes these opportunities move beyond Empire Avenue conversation and into brand conversation about a person’s experience with the brand.

Recently Ford, the most active of the three automotive brands on Empire Avenue, created a private community for Ford Motor Company. It’s a new effort with only 11 members so far and we’ll see how it evolves.

A lot of things are evolving at Empire Avenue as more brands are joining everyday including Dell, Match.com, PR Newswire, and yes even Penthouse. It will be interesting to see if other automotive brands join, since Toyota joining last week no other automotive brands have followed Audi and then Ford’s move to join the site.

What are your thoughts about Empire Avenue? Do you think it’s worth the time of automotive brands (or any brand) to get involved with this rapidly growing online community/game/influence metric?

Also for some other perspectives checkout the following blog posts:

Ford's own Scott Monty talks about "The Gamification of Social Media"

PR Newswire's Victoria Harres writes "Empire Avenue Feels So Much Like 2008...And That's a Good Thing."

Introducing the All-New "Doug" to Yahoo! Mail Users

2011-04-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

I really like the ad unit Yahoo! started last year on their Yahoo! Mail website where a company can purchase the entire login page's background. It has a crisp, generous look and the ad never gets lost in the typical clutter of ad banners, typical of other Yahoo! web properties. Today Ford decided to run a full page unit for the Ford Focus. Or did they? It seems like that was the plan until someone, or is it some thing, decided to takeover the promoting of the all-new Ford Focus.

That "thing" if you haven't heard of it by now is Doug, Ford's Spokespuppet. And yes, "spokespuppet" is not a real word; instead, it is a whole new concept in automotive marketing lingo. Doug and his human sidekick John are bringing some humorous snark to the launch of the Focus. It's almost a little sad that the focus (pun intended) here is an orange puppet when Ford has an amazing new re-introduction of the Focus, having finally brought over to the States the European model that many have been asking for for years.

Back to Yahoo!

Ford's ad unit brought significant awareness not to the car (well indirectly it did), but to a puppet. All of the calls-to-action for the ad unit go to Doug's Facebook Fan page where one can "Like me. Love was not an option." Not one link goes to the Ford Focus website to learn about the car.

It's an interesting decision and perhaps a wise one as one website put it, "Ford Profit Fueled in Part by Social Media".

I can't think of any situation in the almost 4 years I've been writing this blog where a major ad buy from a car company drove entirely to a puppet on Facebook. Sorry, "spokespuppet."

Nissan Blows Smoke at NYIAS Cars, Even Its Own

2011-04-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

Nissan Billboard spews exhaust outside New York Auto Show Javits Center

This is a great out of home billboard from the recent New York International Auto Show (NYIAS) done by TBWA\Chiat\Day LA for Nissan. It's a great way to make a strong selling point for the Nissan LEAF.

The LEAF, of course, is Nissan's all-electric vehicle and while the rest of Nissan's own floor at the auto show blows a lot of smoke around, the billboard still makes an excellent point about what differentiates the LEAF from competitors, including its strongest competitor right now the Chevy Volt. The Volt still has a gasoline engine and is not a full-EV (Electric Vehicle) so the point is still a valid one as these two battle it out.

Nice work here and thanks to AdLand.tv for blogging about it. Credit goes to this post.

Lexus Sponsors YouTube's Indy Film Content

2011-04-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

YouTube is making a play for developing custom content or content that can't be found elsewhere online as it defends its competitive video position against rival Hulu. Part of that defense is the YouTube Screening Room which has been around since 2008, but appears to be making a comeback with YouTube finding new sponsors to promote the films.

What is the Screening Room? From the channel's description, it features "top films from around the world to find the audiences they deserve... While the majority of these films have played at international film festivals, occasionally you'll find films that have never before screened for wide audiences."

Today American Express is sponsoring the Screening Room, but last Tuesday Lexus did its marketing sponsorship duty and brought the Screening Room content to the YouTube audience with a front page banner ad, intro commercial before the film played, and some banners promoting the all-new CT200h filled the screen.

We're Talkin' Imported from Brampton, Ontario

2011-04-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

I had a great time last week on the Adverve Podcast (Show #71: Autobahnned) hosted by Bill Green and Angela Natividad where we discussed quite an interesting blend of topics including Chrysler's Imported from Detroit campaign, the recent Buick NCAA integration, some stuff on what I do heading social media at AT&T, and to start it all off we talked local food and gas station tacos for half of the show (checkout my latest blog: http://www.gasstationtacos.com for more information about that.)

Please follow both of them on twitter and subscribe to Adverve on iTunes, it really is a great show and both Bill (@mtlb) and Angela (@LucktheLady) have a sharp wit and great perspectives on the marketing industry. I listen to their show often and can't recommend it enough.

Is 3D Projection the New Flash Mob Marketing Event?

2011-04-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

I've watched a few flash mob marketing events on YouTube and wonder why am I watching this. It's interesting for maybe 10 seconds but a 1:38-minute video of Can't Touch This... Is this really a good use of my time? I find I have the same experience with the latest trend in event marketing - 3D Projection Imaging.

Just like flash mob videos, 3D Projection Imaging videos always show the people at the event with their mobile phones capturing the moment and being in awe of what is happening where they are. That experience doesn't translate well for someone watching it happen on a YouTube video while at their computer. I guess you just had to be there to really get the experience.

3D Projection Imaging is cool looking and it is certainly more likely to get shared than say the typical TV ad or other attempt at social content, but that's a guess as I don't have any deep dive analysis into whether that is true or not. What I do know is that interesting content that is promoted effectively is likely to see more shares than stuff that is boring and/or has no media push.

Hyundai comes with the latest attempt at trying to capture interest with their Accent promotion and even include a Making of Film. The execution is nicely done with the suspended vehicle looking as if it is driving in multiple scenes there on the building. And even if 3D Project Imaging is starting to get old (see several automotive examples below), it is something fairly recent here in the States and showcases Hyundai's tag line "New Thinking. New Possibilities" in a creative way.

For more examples of how automotive marketers have used 3D Projection Imaging in campaigns, please checkout the following examples from Volvo, BMW, and Volkswagen.

Volvo gave it a try in Frankfurt, Germany on September 2009:

BMW's execution May 2010 in Singapore:

Volkswagen Polo showcased their attempt in April 2010. Be forewarned this example shows what one can do without a big budget:

Thanks to the Digital Buzz Blog for covering the Hyundai example. Checkout their review here.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: March 2011

2011-04-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

March was a rather subtle month without a lot of on-site fan growth ads from the automotive brands, but it was the first month a new brand returned to the United States. It’s been 27 years since Fiat has sold a car here. They returned with the Fiat 500 and I have added Fiat to this list. Like BMW, MINI and Mercedes, Fiat also has a USA-focused Facebook fan page, but like those brands I am reporting on the global brand’s Facebook fan page, but do record all of the USA-focused fan pages.

Meanwhile, Acura continued to run and promote their “Compete Like a Pro” contest for the all-new TSX Sport Wagon (as an interesting side-note, the TSX Sport Wagon is the Japanese Honda Accord wagon that everyone was hoping for back when the Honda CrossTour was announced last year causing quite an uproar on the Honda fan page.) The “Compete Like a Pro” contest is an interesting example of fan growth from marketing, CRM, and engagement.

Back in January they promoted the contest and bought some Facebook ads to support the effort creating a 23% increase in fan growth. In February, some marketing continued but most of the effort to promote the contest was done through Acura’s email communications (see image at left from a February 22 email) and there was some promotion by contestants to create interest (votes) for the contest that resulted in a 10% fan growth. As the initial surge of contestant promotion tapered, so did the fan growth, as it was only 5% in March when the contest was closing the voting.

Many of us see friends in our own communities promote – ask for – votes when they do an online contest. This initial surge in friend participation comes to an end rather quickly and then near the end of the contest, the highly competitive top people in the votes make an additional request for votes, but this is a much smaller group. What we see with the Acura contest is fairly typical and shows that the biggest impact in fan growth is still advertising to promote instead of counting on organic growth. The final 5% growth in March is a normal organic fan growth so the contest was doing very little in fan growth. Of course it might of (and hopefully did for Acura) create more clicks to dot.com and engagement which were probably the primary goals of the contest.

There was very little else going on in March for the automotive brands on Facebook. Lexus saw some positive growth with the biggest bump of 22% fan growth coming from their heavy media buys around the all-new Lexus CT200h.

Note: Unfortunately I missed a month in March, a first since starting this monthly post in November of 2009. I did record the fan numbers and you can see the early fan numbers from March in this post. I never did a February 2011 report, but have all the raw data if any one wants it. Please send me an email at red335i@yahoo.com if you do.

The Toyota "Force"

2011-04-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'm sure many of you remember Volkswagen's "The Force" Super Bowl commercial. If you do not, you can read about it here. You know you made an ad that resonated with the public when you get some parodies on YouTube. The best one by far is this Toyota example that brings a bit of automotive recall hijinks to the mix.

Enjoy.

Credit goes to @CGawley's blog post. Thanks Cameron.

Buick Goes for an Emotional Brand Campaign for NCAA

2011-03-31T13:46:00.000-07:00

Buick is sponsoring the NCAA and as part of that effort they launched a new series of inspirational videos featuring several athletes who have overcome adversity. The campaign is called the Human Highlight Reel and as part of the launch Buick bought the homepage ad unit on YouTube last Monday.

This is all part of Buick's transformation or is it reclamation as the brand moves upmarket as a premium brand. This is the segment brands like Lincoln, Acura, Infiniti and to some extent Cadillac has played in for the past couple decades. Some people also call them segment affordable luxury. It's that awkward place between general consumer and luxury consumer vehicles, essentially the brands that cannot directly compete with the likes of Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Lexus; although, Lexus is a primary target of all these brands. Lexus breaks convention as they have beaten the Germans in some vehicle segments.

Buick wants to own the Premium space and as Cadillac continues to evolve and yes become a direct competitor with German luxury brands, now is the time for General Motors to show keeping the Buick brand, after closing several others, was a good decision. Fortunately, the products are getting better but the brand itself still has a major way to go as it assumes a more lofty aspirational brand identity.

The Human Highlight Reel campaign is a fairly typical attempt at facilitating the brand change. I'm sure the consumer research came back showing that Buick considers or the aspirational customers Buick wants to attract are free thinking (think brand agnostic), self motivated people who don't want to follow the herd. As a way to attract these consumers, the brand is trying to appeal to that person through inspirational content that shows the spirit the brand wants to embody or at least thinks its desired customers embody.

I'll admit it is personally difficult for me to see Buick as anything other than my mom's car. She had a nice, yellowish 1976 Buick Skylark coupe. It was mom's car from 1976 until the late 1980s when she finally sold it. Amazingly, it looked just as good the day she let go of it as when she bought it off the car lot. I definitely get my cleanliness when it comes to cars from my mom (my dad's Nissan Sentra had several weeks old McDonalds bags and various trash all over the floor. No wonder they got divorced.)

Fortunately, others may be more open to the Buick brand than I am and fortunately too they are making some solid products to back up the marketing change, because it doesn't matter how bad you want to attract new customers - you have to have the right products to meet the desired change.

One Way to Get Your Dealers Involved

2011-03-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

I’m guilty like most automotive bloggers of covering the larger brands more than some of the small players in the market. One brand that doesn’t get a lot of play is Mitsubishi. Well I wanted to find out what a Mitsubishi was doing with their efforts in social media and to my surprise I came across an unique way for the brand’s Facebook page to include their dealers.

Right now Mitsubishi is asking its fans to vote for the best dealer walkaround video. A walkaround video is where a dealer employee shows the features of a vehicle. The Facebook fans were asked to select from several dealer videos finalizing on three videos that are currently competing for a $2,500 prize to be awarded to the winning dealership.

Some of the videos are typical walkaround experiences where the dealer representative simply details every single feature, one with background Minnesota polka music. There definitely is a format to what the dealers were supposed to do here as all the videos cover every feature inside and out and run about 4 minutes plus in length.

Other videos are more entertaining with a bit more style, but still with substance. “Check out my curves and check out my lines,” sings one Omaha dealer who realizes there has to be some personality to keep people’s interest. Unfortunately like the more professional examples, none of the videos are that compelling and sitting through three 4 minute videos with basically the same exact content is a lot to ask, even from your fans.

I do like the idea of getting dealers involved in a real way with the greater Mitsubishi Facebook fan base and it incorporates fans thoughts through voting which video is best. Unfortunately, the $2,500 prize money that is offered is offered to the winning dealer and not a supporting local charity which would’ve had a more compelling appeal to a national audience.

Regardless, Mitsubishi is getting inventive with how to engage fans and finding ways to bring their dealers into the conversation. Sure this example isn’t going to turn into viral gold (total video views on the 3 final videos is at: 1,839 views), but it’s one way to extend goodwill between the OEM’s efforts in social and letting the dealer network reap some publicity too.

Hyundai Debuts iPad Ad During The Oscars

2011-02-27T19:48:00.000-08:00

It's an interesting sell for a $60k plus luxury car - feature the owner's manual. Manuals are something so mundane and expected, but what wasn't expected from a car manufacturer is an electronic version included in the glove-box on an Apple iPad.

But does it matter? Does the owner manual matter in a luxury sedan? Of course no one is going to buy a $60k car because they get a $500 tablet computer. The Hyundai Equus ad has nothing to do with attracting luxury car buyers, it's really about the brand showing they are being innovative and hopefully some of that innovation will rub-off on other shoppers who may consider another Hyundai vehicle, sans iPad.

Is the Equus iPad app really that innovative? There have been other versions of owner manuals including the cassette tape I received when I bought a 1997 BMW 318i. Sure it was no iPad, but it was better than flipping through the paper copy in the glove-box.

Some found the debut of Hyundai's Equus iPad Owner Manual ad during tonight's Oscars a "Brilliant" idea. It is a solid idea and a great way for owners to get to know their car better, especially with all the technology in today's cars. It is an excellent way to explain the complexity of today's vehicles. Fortunately, my former 1997 BMW didn't have today's electronics and could be expressed on a tape deck.

Of course you don't need to spend tens of thousands of dollars to experience the Equus iPad Owner Manual; instead, you just need an iPad and an iTunes store account. Click here to download the Owner Manual app.

"Imported from Detroit" the T-Shirt

2011-02-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

After plenty of discussion online and coverage from major and minor media outlets, Chrysler decided to follow up their "Imported from Detroit" Super Bowl commercial with an accompanying t-shirt.

I was personally expecting black with some simple white lettering, but someone decided a winged tire would be a bit more friendly than the tone the Super Bowl ad set, which was a bit more dark and matter of fact.

You can order yours now for $29.95. Fortunately, someone was smart enough to have the shirts made in the USA; though, "Made in the USA" isn't always made in the USA (learn more here.) It would've been even better to use a local t-shirt company like Detroit GT to do the shirts.

Regardless it is a smart move from Chrysler and good to see them carry the tagline into apparel.

Here is the original ad if you were too busy watching the football game:

Joining the Panel on The Bean Cast Marketing Podcast

2011-02-07T11:28:00.001-08:00

Hopefully you enjoy listening to Podcasts as much as I do and there are some great automotive ones out there including Auto Bird and Autoline Detroit After Hours. I'm also a fan of some marketing Podcasts too and Bob Knorpp's The Bean Cast is definitely the one I listen to the most. Fortunately I had a chance to join the panel discussion for a third time last weekend.

We had a great cast including Jeff Cutler, Valeria Maltoni, and Åsk Wäppling. We covered quite a few topics including the Social Bowl, Kenneth Cole and Taco Bell PR gaffs, GroupOn promotion fatigue, Google's "Bing Sting", and WebTrends report on poor performance from Facebook's ads. There was quite a bit of discussion on the automotive ads that were to come on the Super Bowl (we taped the Saturday morning before the big game.)

You can listen to the show online: http://www.beancast.us/profiles/blogs/beancast-139-kenneth-cole

Or better yet, subscribe to The Bean Cast on iTunes so you too can get the show every week. If you love marketing, this is a fantastic Podcast to follow: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-beancast-marketing-podcast/id277578731

Super Bowl XLV Automotive Ads: She Said, He Said Analysis with Melanie Batenchuk

2011-02-06T14:58:00.000-08:00

Last year I had such a great time covering the Super Bowl ads with Melanie Batenchuk from the BeCarChic blog that I had to do it again.

This year there was a ton to cover and fortunately some standout ads. I checked out Mullen and Radian6's Brandbowl project that measures number of Twitter mentions and sentiment to find out my two top picks made #1 and #2. So it was a great year for car commercials.

Now for our thoughts...

Audi “Release the Hounds”

HE SAID: Was the hashtag #PrestigeIs? Or #PackersIs? Or #ProgressIs? Does it really matter? Audi’s claim to fame this year was being the first Super Bowl ad to use a Twitter hashtag. I followed the hashtag content for a couple minutes after the ad and people …. But did @Audi even show up? They did. Here is one of the tweets they sent.

So how about the commercial? Horrible. Boring and Kenny G. What was that? It was so incredibly boring and after so many great ads from Audi in prior Super Bowl years. The only good line in the ad was the “hit him with the Kenny G” where the wealthy escapee is sidetracked by some soprano saxophone. Overall though the ad didn’t have the wit of Audi’s recent campaigns.

In an interesting side-note, Audi bought the YouTube home page banner the night of the Super Bowl, hoping anyone there searching for Super Bowl ads would checkout Audi’s too.

SHE SAID: Super Bowl advertisers definitely discovered the promoted Tweet this year. When it comes to Internet technologies, auto industry folks can certainly be a little over-zealous. Audi, while trying to be different, overdid it. I was bombarded by the same 140 character promoted tweet from Audi (including their #ProgressIs hashtag) every 15 to 30 minutes. It would have been more impactful had Audi actually engaged with its community tonight.

I disagree with Chris that the ad was horrible; however, I agree that the best part was “hit them with the Kenny G!” Audi cleverly used the imagery of bourgeois people stuck in their “luxury” cells as a way to show how having a luxury sedan (ahem, a Mercedes-Benz) can be perceived as being stuffy. Audi’s marketing efforts in the past few years have certainly driven their brand far from that stuffy feel, attracting younger buyers who yearn for a ride that’s both sporty and well-appointed.

BMW X3 “Defying Logic”

HE SAID: This ad had a lot to love but the one thing that bothered me was why the focus on America? The ad leads up to the “Designed in America. Built in America” line. I get it’s true and it is a good thing for our country, but people who buy BMWs want German cars, not American cars. Part of me wonders if this messaging backfires for the brand. Honda ran similar made in America ads for their Accords a few years back, but that was in response to the US auto makers claiming they were the job builders of the car industry, not the Japanese. So Honda responded as did Toyota too that they made cars in America that created American jobs.

BMW is a luxury car maker selling an image. Just imagine the horror of some yuppie being told their German car is a South Carolina car. So much for prestige (not that South Carolina is a bad place, but let’s be honest it doesn’t have the cache of German engineering and attention to detail.) Overall, it was a brilliant ad for South Carolina and the great workers of BMW’s factory, but from a brand perspective I just didn’t think it worked in the company’s favor.

SHE SAID: I think it's great that we have GM touting German engineering and BMW telling everyone they build cars in America. This message isn't for car enthusiasts, or even BMW enthusiasts. This message is for rural America - those who have been so loyal to "domestic" brands in the past because they were built on U.S. soil. The Big Three have eased up on this messaging as it has become common knowledge that many of their vehicles are built in Canada and Mexico. Perhaps this will break down some of those nasty protectionism barriers that the automotive industry has faced.

Hyundai did a similar spot last year, sharing the news of their plant in Alabama. I wish that Volkswagen had done the same for their Chattanooga Passat.

BMW Advanced Diesel – “Changes”

HE SAID: Bowie, BMW and Diesels. Is there any more win in a commercial? I think not. The chugging Volvo station wagon up hill blowing out black smoke was classic as was the truck driver coughing up diesel smoke. It was funny and reset a lot of the opinions regarding what a diesel car is today. Times have changed for sure.

SHE SAID: BMW took me back to my youth with this one. I reminisced of my dad’s old powder blue Mercedes Benz 300 diesel (much like this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mercedesmotoring/4082414816/in/photostream/) I hated the smell that it emitted and the way it rattled before it warmed up in the wintertime.

I think BMW was spot-on with connecting us to our old feelings about diesel, but I’m not sure they did enough to evoke new feelings. Those who reacted to the ad on Twitter did not seem to make a distinction between the diesel of the 70’s and 80’s and the diesel technologies of today.

Chevrolet “Bumblebee”

HE SAID: In full disclosure, I can’t stand the Transformer movies. They are so awful. That aside, I think the ad played well with its unexpected plot and poking fun at the absurdity of most dealership ads. Mascot, cheerleaders, and balloons all added to the mockery, but where was the giant inflatable gorilla or free hot dogs? Come on Chevy if you are going to make fun of your dealer ads, don’t forget the free food.

SHE SAID: I think this was the most action-packed ad of the evening. Poking fun at dealers’ local ads never gets old. The twist of the Transformers Camaro made me wonder if it was a Chevy ad or a movie trailer. I will say, however, that Chevrolet did the best job at showcasing its models – each of its ads included a different model and a different marketing spin. That was smart move on their behalf, especially considering where GM was as a company just two years ago.

But, more than anything, what I liked best about this commercial slash movie trailer was that Megan Fox was nowhere in it.

Chevy Cruze “Misunderstanding”

HE SAID: A brilliant and fun way to emphasize 42 mpg fuel economy on the all-new Cruze Eco model. With a lot of cars now doing 40 plus mpgs, I’m not sure how well it stands out these days, but it is a good message for Chevy and a creative way to drive a product benefit home.

SHE SAID: With so much emphasis on the young and sexy, it was fun to see Chevy use the humor of these cantankerous senior citizens. The ad succeeded in calling out the Cruze Eco model.

Chevy Silverado “Tommy”

HE SAID: Chevy takes a break from their heritage branding and borrows from some other Americana – Lassie. The Silverado becomes its own rescue saving machine. It was a decent ad, but like the rest of the Chevy (and Hyundai) ads it just wasn’t very memorable and the Super Bowl is all about being Super. Maybe instead of trying to do four ads during the game, maybe one really impressive ad – like Chrysler’s – would’ve been a better route to go.

SHE SAID: Chevy deepened its American-at-heart branding with this classic spin on the TV show we all loved. I think Chevy should have played out fewer storylines within the time constraints in order to make a stronger impression. If there was only one rescue story for viewers to follow from beginning to end, then that would have made it more memorable.

Chevy Cruze “Status”

HE SAID: Oh great now I can listen to my aunt complain about her day at work in a Chevy Cruze. Is this progress? Well at least the ad shows a cute way it is helpful; though, a successful first date didn’t involve a Facebook status update when I was young. Times change I suppose, in this case for the worse. The ad was cute but not very memorable or entertaining; though, it did garner some discussion about Facebook more than Chevy where I was at.

SHE SAID: Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Chevy’s Facebook status ad was adorable. That being said, I’m not sure it makes sense for Chevy to try to compete with Ford’s Sync technology this late in the game. I felt as if the Detroit car maker was saying “Hey, we can do voice command, too. Oh, and don’t forget social networking sites updates!”

Watching the Twitter conversation was interesting. There were numerous tweets about how having a car read its driver Facebook status updates does not eliminate distracted driving. I believe that drivers are going to text and check their social networks regardless of rules and regulations, so why not give them the tools to do it more safely?

Chevy Camaro “Miss Evelyn”

HE SAID: Chevy goes with the let’s run through every cliché and then ends with another cliché. Any ad that begins with “I got a great idea for… commercial” is going to be lame. It wasn’t interesting. The better Camaro spot was their placement of the Camaro convertible during the MVP ceremony after the game.

SHE SAID: I had fun watching the brainstorming process that goes into advertising play out in an absurd way. The ad was definitely clever…and I’m sure the guys didn’t mind having three or four beautiful women (blonde, brunette, red-head) to feast their eyes on. Right Chris?

Chrysler “Imported from Detroit”

HE SAID: After Eminem was earlier featured in Lipton commercial saying he doesn’t do commercials while in a commercial as a cartoon, the Chrysler spot showed up taking over a full two minute commercial break. It definitely won a lot of hearts and minds from what I saw on Twitter after it aired. A few people where even asking for an “Imported from Detroit” t-shirt (hear that Chrysler?)

It was a great ad from the agency that won AdAge Agency of the Year Wieden+Kennedy. So no surprise they knocked the adorable VW Vader out from being my favorite from Super Bowl XLV.

On the negative side, too bad they couldn’t of used a better car than a refreshed Sebring, aka the 200. The 300 would’ve been a much better vehicle with its stance and new lines. I’m sure Chrysler would’ve loved to have used the new 300 instead. Unfortunately it’s made in Brampton, Ontario and “Imported from Ontario” kind of deflates the ad’s impact.

SHE SAID: The crowd – both online and offline – overwhelmingly identified with Chrysler’s two-minute commercial depicting Detroit as the come-back city. Using Eminem solidified the automaker’s fight to survive hard times. Chrysler was smart to latch on to his tough-guy brand.

“Imported from Detroit” was definitely the most powerful ad (at least emotionally) of the Super Bowl. Unlike Chevy and Audi, Chrysler didn’t need to spend money on promoted tweets because everyone was still talking about the ad hours after it aired.
The longer length of the ad left me questioning why others don’t do the same and whether this could become a trend in the next Super Bowl.

Ford Focus “Focus Rally”

HE SAID: In the pre-game show, Ford premiered their Focus Rally commercial asking TV viewers to “Join Our Team.” It wasn’t very clear to me what join our team meant since it didn’t really say what a team was or why I would want to join a team. Perhaps that more complex message can be answered at the Focus Rally website. I wasn’t alone as I immediately saw this tweet showing the same confusion, hopefully for Ford people will take the time to find out and apparently they did as the FocusRally.com website was unavailable when I tried to check it out after the ad.

SHE SAID: I give Ford props for its attempt to use traditional advertising to spark a social media movement. The automaker prompted viewers to visit its microsite to learn more about the Focus cross-country rally contest. People can participate in this interactive race and even win a new 2012 Focus. It will be interesting to see how successful it is.

Hyundai Elantra “Sheep”, “Childhood”, “Hypnotized”, “Deprogramming”

HE SAID: I barely remembered any of these ads and had to go back on YouTube to refresh my memory. And no I didn’t drink a lot, I had two beers during the game and one was a root beer. “Harness your Spirit Animal” lacked the punch of Chrysler’s end tagline “Imported from Detroit.” The hypnotized ad was the freakiest of the car ads this year and lost me.

“Sheep” was the best of this bunch. It really made me look again at the design of the vehicle and this is a good thing as Hyundai’s Elantra is great addition to their lineup.

SHE SAID: Hyundai is clearly good at coming up with themes for its advertising. I thought that these ads were decent, but not memorable. I remember Jeff Bridges’ voiceover more than the actual commercials. I think I would have liked to see Hyundai’s thriller “Car Wash” ad in the Super Bowl in place of a few of the others.

On the other hand, the “sheep” ad wasn’t all that “baaaaaad.” (Sorry, I just had to do it.)

Hyundai Sonata “Anachronistic City”

HE SAID: The Hyundai ad wasn’t a Super Bowl debut, but it was fairly new and showcased their move into the crowded Hybrid segment. It’s a good ad but like many others it just missed the mark of making any sort of impact when everyone is paying extra attention to the commercials; instead, of fast forwarding through on the DVR.

SHE SAID: If Hyundai was attempting a comparison ad, I think they missed the mark. It would have been nice to see which hybrids they were lining up against the Sonata hybrid. I found the tagline humorous and memorable, but I didn’t remember that this ad was for a car. Oh, and how many people know the definition of “anachronistic?”.

Kia “One Epic Ride”

HE SAID: I’ve been in enough creative meetings to know this ad was one of those outrageous reach for the sky budget ads. That’s all glitz. Unfortunately, the Kia brand doesn’t get me thinking “epic” and this commercial only said to me that the creative budget was epic but that it did little to nothing to move the brand message. Too bad, because the Optima is a great car and over promising only hurts the positive accolades the car deserves. Instead no one saw why it is a major jump for the Kia brand since all we’ll remember, if we remember anythings, is the Poseidon-like water king.

SHE SAID: Kia debuted its 2012 Optima with this movie trailer-esque ad. The storyline was weak for me, and the dude in the helicopter reminded me of an older version of Speed Racer. I couldn’t quite grasp what Kia was selling here. Maybe it’s because I’m not sold on the fact that consumers are fighting over their vehicles. But I did like how it finished; incorporating the Mayans is never a bad thing.

Mercedes Benz “Welcome to the Family”

HE SAID: A very well done, though mostly unmemorable spot for Mercedes. Honestly any commercial with a 300 SL Gullwing is great in my book and with so many excellent classic cars it definitely peaked my auto geek interest. The only part that bugged me was the inclusion of a celebrity, in this case P-Diddy or whatever his name is this year, that seemed completely unnecessary and took away from the romance of the classic cars. Perhaps someone in marketing felt no one would pay attention if it only showed cars. They were wrong.

SHE SAID: Having visited the Mercedes-Benz museum in Germany last fall, I enjoyed this commercial because it displayed the automaker’s long-standing history. MB recently celebrated its 125th anniversary, and I think this ad paid homage to that accomplishment.

MINI “Cram It in the Boot”

HE SAID: Seriously? “Cram it in the Boot”? Plenty of room to cram? Nothing like some good old fashion butt sex humor to get the football watching Americans laughing. This was such a sad attempt at being sexually suggestive for cheap laughs, perhaps MINI figured if they ran this spot late in the game we’d all be drunk enough to laugh away.

SHE SAID: In MINI’s debut Super Bowl appearance, it put the game show spotlight on its new Countryman crossover. This was my least favorite auto ad. Any Brits out there care to enlighten me on the humor?
MINI does give us a good look at the vehicle. Although, I have to say, the styling of the vehicle is so similar to the MINI Cooper, that it’s difficult to tell the proportions and size difference of the Countryman on TV. I saw the vehicle in person at the Washington Auto Show. It’s quaint yet extremely sporty. Though I’m not sure how many “moms-on-the-go” will be driving it. I liked MINI’s pre-Super Bowl ad “Emergency” better.

Volkswagen “The Force”

HE SAID: Brilliant. The ad, not the car. The new Passat is a major disappointment but at least marketing is doing its best to salvage what is basically a slightly larger Jetta. As VW tries to cut costs in their cars to be more price competitive, they decide to do some rights licensing from George Lucas.

SHE SAID: Volkswagen won the hearts of Star Wars geeks everywhere with this one. The 2012 Passat ad was cute and appealed to pretty much everyone. As a dad to two young boys, I'm sure Chris can relate to this more than I can. The ad couldn't have been better; however, I would like to have seen an ad featuring VW's new plant in Tennessee, where they now build the Passat for the U.S.

Volkswagen “Black Beetle”

HE SAID: This year’s best commercial soundtrack goes to VW (best one in 2010 was Kia using “Do You Like Me Know” by The Heavy.) Jon Spencer Blues Explosion recorded the “Black Beauty” cover for the ad. It has great energy and the turbo boosted beetle with racing stripes was a nice touch, but to get the best experience for this spot go to YouTube. Volkswagen created a full YouTube home page takeover last week that is the better experience. Check it out now.

SHE SAID: Another hit by Volkswagen. It was unexpected, energetic, and personified a crunchy, black bug. What more could you ask for?

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: January 2011

2011-02-06T07:32:00.000-08:00

There wasn’t a lot of growth in January’s Facebook fan numbers. Perhaps it’s all of the ad agencies working on their Super Bowl ads. Many brands were pushing their vehicle sites and a couple of German companies were focusing on their USA Fan pages, instead of their global brand pages.

Both Mercedes-Benz and BMW created USA focused brand pages in 2010 (see the USA pages growth in the image below to the left.) Mercedes just completed a “Tweet Race” contest between 4 teams spending all kinds of money on celebrities, charities, providing luxury vehicles, and all congregating this weekend at the Super Bowl in Dallas, Texas. Even though it was a “Tweet” contest, Mercedes spent quite a bit on advertising the event on Facebook throughout most of January.

BMW ran several advertisements promoting the new X3 and the all-new 1M. The X3 Matchup was promoted in January ads on Facebook to promote their coming Super Bowl ad. Players match different images and watch for clues in the Super Bowl ad to win a X3 for 2 years and a VIP trip to their Spartanburg plant, museum, and most importantly their Performance Driving School. Facebook fans are asked to build a X3 where they try to guess the exact build of the one appearing in their Super Bowl ad. I’m guessing silver.

Toyota heavily promoted their name the “Prius Goes Plural” campaign after the brand launched several new Prii, Prius, Prium vehicles at the Detroit Auto Show in early January. It seemed as if every day Toyota had the reachblock bought on my Facebook’s Home screen. With all of their promotion, only one of my Facebook friends voted and I have a ton of friends who are car nuts and in the industry (661 friends total.) Sure my checking my friends against people participating is far from scientific, but it did surprise me when the typical auto ad on Facebook has at least 3 or 4 of my friends liking it. Voting of course is different.

An important note on Toyota’s Prius campaign, it didn’t drive fans to the brand’s Facebook page; hence, the measly 2% growth rate for them in January. Fortunately, Toyota has a pretty strong presence with their Prius brand and many in the industry wonder if they’ll ever move Prius off to its own brand. Perhaps with so many new models that scenario may be playing out.

Finally, the strongest growth came from Acura. They recently abandoned their separate vehicle pages so now whenever they have a vehicle promotion they drive traffic to their brand page. In January, they ran a promotion to their “Compete Like A Pro” contest for the all-new TSX Sport Wagon. What’s great here is that they grew their overall fans instead of just a single vehicle fan page so they can promote other products to those fans. It was a smart move for Acura and their growth in January shows how it helps the overall brand presence.

"Celebrity" Ride and Drives

2011-01-25T19:00:00.000-08:00

Celebrity is back. Okay, it never really went away, but it seems there is a new spin on how to get celebrities interested in trying out a new car. Pair the celebrity with an interesting personality who can keep the conversation interesting and also find some time to highlight the features in the car.

For Lexus, the formula centered around the attractive comedian Whitney Cummings driving celebrities - from all walks of life - including a skateboarder, actress, and a social media author in the all-new CT 200h. The CT 200h is a new hybrid hatchback that arrives at dealerships in March 2011. There isn't much new with the CT 200h, but Whitney is a great host and makes most of the videos watchable. She definitely is the star more so than the car.

The CT 200h campaign is called the Darker Side of Green, but they extended the campaign by calling the drives Darkcasting. Why Darkcasting? It is described as "the first ever in-car after-dark talk show." I'm sure the claim of "first ever" will go unchallenged. Each drive takes place at night and the cast is Whitney as passenger and her "celebrity" driver.

You can see social media author Brian Solis in this video:

Chevrolet Casts "The Perez Hilton of the East Coast"

Chevrolet includes lifestyle and celebrity blogger Micah Jesse as a key person in their latest campaign Cruze-Arati.

Unfortunately, Micah mistakenly assumes he is doing the "first mobile talk show." Perhaps he can claim the first ever in-car daylight talk show. I'm fairly certain that claim is still available.

Micah does an in-car interview with "celebrity" Kelly Bensimon from the Real Housewives of New York City.

One odd difference is how Micah interviews Kelly on the side of the road. Did Chevy's lawyers not allow the interview to happen while the car is in drive?

Cruze-Arati is a bit more than just in-car interviews. In fact, most of it revolves around six topical experts talking on subjects like Technology, Music, Sports and Fashion. It's mainly about socially active people driving around in a Cruze and showcasing some "crazy" stories around each of the topics. There is even a Twitter account, @Cruzearati, to follow all the antics.

After Losing Car of the Year, Nissan Promotes a Tweet

2011-01-12T05:26:00.000-08:00

So you didn't win the big award especially after losing to your main rival. It isn't the best feeling. In this situation, Nissan LEAF lost to the Chevy Volt for North American Car of the Year at the North American International Auto Show but that didn't stop Nissan from promoting what they did win.

Today on Twitter there is a promoted tweet: "Nissan LEAF" that promotes their winning the Eco Car of the Year at NAIAS. There is nothing wrong with promoting this tweet and getting the word out. Nor is there anything wrong with the Eco Car of the Year award, I'm sure it's an honor.

I just wonder if it's a little sad after losing the big award to have to promote a tweet to get people to notice you did win something. After all of the press coverage of Chevy Volt winning Car of the Year on Monday, perhaps Nissan felt a bit left out and wanted to share they didn't walkaway empty handed.

Lastly, I would've never known they won if it wasn't for the promoted tweet so it definitely served its purpose.

Consumer Electronics Show, Different Kind of Auto Show

2011-01-09T21:56:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately I missed this year’s North American International Auto Show, also known as NAIAS, after attending it every year since 1997. Fortunately, there was another “auto show” going on the week before in Las Vegas. Did I say auto show? Oh I meant International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) where they show off a lot of technology and some of it featured on four wheels. Ford and Audi both keynoted at the show. Nissan had a local LEAF drive and Automotive Rhythms hosted a Nissan LEAF “Electric Party” at The Palms. Nvidia brought the Tesla Model S for a quick show-and-tell. There was even an in-vehicle technology track for those who wanted to know more about the latest automotive technology.

I spent some time at the show watching Audi’s keynote. They came with their R8 E-Tron Spyder Concept and the Audi A7L.

Audi showcased their relationship with graphics chip maker Nvidia Corporation. “German engineering meets Silicon Valley,” Audi CEO Rupert Stadler shared with the crowd of a couple hundred people who watched him roll out onto stage in the revised E-Tron concept.

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang joined Stadler on stage where they shared the latest Navigation system and coming in-dash LCD instrument panel. The graphics definitely wowed the crowd and showcased how the merging of technology and automotive engineering can come together to really impress an audience who can respect what it takes to make such an impressive computer on wheels.

CES even had an automotive reveal at the show – The Ford Focus EV. My flight left right as Ford’s Alan Mulally took the stage to reveal the new electric Focus. Ford made a big splash at last year’s CES with the debut of their MyFord and MyLincoln Touch systems.

It may not be as comprehensive as an auto show, but CES is finding its own niche in the automotive world. Now next year if only I can find a way to get into the Automotive Rhythm’s party and better plan my travel to stay around to hear Mulally speak, I won’t feel so bad missing NAIAS again.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: December 2010

2011-01-02T20:09:00.000-08:00

Milestones are a time for celebration. BMW gave thanks to its fans when it crossed 1/2 million fans. Audi recently celebrated its reaching 2 million fans and Mercedes Benz also showed some appreciation when it hit 2 million fans. All of these prior celebrations involved a wall post and video, but none of the automotive companies have done anything truly creative to celebrate such a milestone until now.

Porsche passed the 1 million fan mark a couple weeks ago and as part of the celebration they are placing a special model Porsche in the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart. Fans can ask for their name to be on the displayed vehicle by signing up on their Facebook fan page tab called "1,000,000". It's a creative way to bring the milestone to life, much more interesting than some thrown together ad agency video.

Major milestones aside, GMC blew everyone away with the most significant monthly fan gain - a whopping 95%. Like most double-digit changes, GMC's rise is attributable to media spend driving fans to their Facebook page. GMC has a sponsorship with the NFL that has fans voting for the "Never Say Never Moment of the Week." There are weekly prizes, a trip to the Super Bowl and a chance to win a 2011 GMC Sierra Denali.

Hyundai ran some reachblocks in the beginning of December. Other companies that did some marketing in Facebook were Lexus, Chrysler, and Dodge (this is not a comprehensive list just some of the ads I personally saw.) Mercedes-Benz worked to promote their Tweet Race. The ad units sent people to the recently created Mercedes-Benz USA Facebook fan page.

Yes, Mercedes like BMW, Mini and Smart now has a "USA" fan page. As part of their way to create interest for the page they are doing the "World's First Twitter-Fueled Race" which looks basically like a road-trip with four teams driving from four different cities to the Super Bowl in Dallas. This sounds eerily similar to last year's Chevrolet SXSW road-trip scavenger hunt. (Look for a coming article on Mercedes' event around when it begins on February 2.)

A final insight in December comes from Mazda. I find it interesting how some brands promote sales events (Acura has one right now), or they keep a corporate logo, or others promote a new product as part of Facebook's profile image. Mazda is promoting their new Mazda5 but they also found a nice, clean way to promote their other social media brand destinations in the profile picture. The promotion of other channels and their dot.com site is effectively communicated.

Download the Excel file: Facebook Auto Fan File (December 2010)

Would You Pickup this Hitchhiker in Your Benz?

2010-12-24T06:20:00.001-08:00

I love the truly bizarre marketing ideas. One of favorites was last year's An American Werewolf in Yaris. It has been replaced by an even stranger idea - this one from a Berlin street artist and photographer Stefan Gbureck for Mercedes-Benz. It's called "Tramp a Benz", and for those lacking a German to English dictionary "tramp" is basically German for "hitchhiking."

The idea comes from the German advertising agency Jung von Matt. The travels of street artist Gbureck are captured digitally via a blog and Facebook fan page, and what blog doesn't have a Facebook page these days - except my blog.

I wonder how this would translate in America. I'm guessing only hitching rides with Benz drivers would involve a lot of walking and wondering if hitching a ride with a Chrysler when Mercedes owned them would count.

The only time I ever picked up a hitchhiker was in high school at 16 when I saw two older girls (probably 18-20.) I cruised up in my '76 Chevy Vega and they giggled a lot at me, but fortunately didn't kill me and throw my body in a vacant lot which is pretty close to what my mom said would happen if I picked up a hitchhiker again.

Pontiac Resurrects from the Dead Tries to Sell Me a Buick

2010-12-15T20:29:00.000-08:00

Last Monday afternoon I received an unexpected email. Seems Pontiac is back. Well at least the former Pontiac eNewsletter is back and it no longer has a new Pontiac to sell me, but someone at General Motors feels a new Buick Regal is the new GM's answer to Pontiac.

I suppose the Regal is the right answer, since it is trying to position itself as a sports sedan capable of reigniting "Excitement!"

It's an interesting play with Pontiac owners/leasees probably on the hunt for a new car and GM obviously wants to keep Pontiac owners in the family so with the new Regal there is a decent replacement for these customers.

The email also promoted service for Pontiac owners and a new mobile app available for 2011 Buick, GMC, Chevrolet, and Cadillac models. It will be interesting to see how or if the Pontiac eNewsletter will promote other GM vehicles or if it will try to move Pontiac owners to the Buick brand.

Luxury Site Offers Cheap 2011 VW Jettas

2010-12-15T09:40:00.000-08:00

Luxury retail discount site Gilt is selling a few 2011 Volkswagen Jettas for the low, low price of $5,995. That's right, as part of the launch of the new Jetta, VW partnered with the luxury online retailer to help gain some awareness with the stylish Gilt customer base.

If you don't know what Gilt is here is some information from their website: "Gilt Groupe provides invitation-only access to highly coveted products and experiences at insider prices." Basically, the site (and new mobile application) offer discounted clothing, home goods, travel and its first ever car for sale. Brands are high-end labels - think Neiman Marcus or Saks Fifth Avenue customers on a budget.

The purchase experience is very similar to American Express when they offered a BMW Z4 for $5k in 2004 during their My Life My Card promotion. Like the American Express offer, the VW sale requires some quick clicking since only 1 lucky person a day for 3 days will get the deeply discounted price.

Overall, it's not a bad way to generate some awareness for a new car launch beyond a typical media buy. Plus the Gilt Group's exclusive audience (yes, I've been a member for a few years now) fits the VW Jetta target enough to warrant interest whether the Jetta shopper is looking for himself or one of their kids.

BMW Takes Branding to a Creepy Level

2010-12-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

This is either really cool or kind of creepy. I'm in the latter group, but you have to give BMW props for taking cinema advertising to a new and rather interesting space.

The technique used is similar to when one looks straight at the sun and then closes their eyes. Once eyes are closed, an image of the sun is captured as an afterimage. Don't believe it? Try it when the summer comes out in six months or look it up on Wikipedia (remember that site? The one that now sounds like WikiLeaks.)

BMW took the afterimage effect to a new place where they quickly flashed a bright light during an in cinema commercial and then the commercial asks the audience to close its eyes. Those who closed their eyes saw the afterimage of "BMW". It's a pretty cool idea; though, it isn't something that is easily portable as the projection of the logo requires a full installation behind the movie theater's screen. So scale is an issue.

Fortunately, we can all enjoy the concept via YouTube even if YouTube is unable to burn the BMW letters into our eyeballs. Maybe someday...

GM's We All Fall Down Imagery Doesn't Fit

2010-11-26T06:33:00.002-08:00

General Motors gave thanks this holiday week to the millions of taxpayers who helped bail them out last year. The timing of the ad is at least better than Chrysler's failed attempt at thanks in 2009 when they thanked people using a full page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today right after they received the bailout money. At least, GM had the sense to wait for a thank you the week after they went public with their IPO and return to investor financing.

I see two desired outcomes GM wants from this particular ad. One to energize people who like the brand. Second is to get people to see GM has a fighter that didn't just lay-down after it got its money. They want people who have lost faith in GM to know the brand is getting up, not giving up and wants to be seen as a survivor and champion.

The imagery used in the ad is all about not giving up. It shows several historical and socially recognizable clips when it looked over, but the people in the ad did not give up and found the strength to win.

The biggest criticism I can see from the imagery used is that all if it showcases individuals who got back up using their own freewill and not through a helping hand. No one gave the boxer a 5-hour energy drink, shoulder massage and pep talk to rise up from the mat. Sure someone helped Evel Knievel up from his accident but he got back on the bike himself and kept going.

The Henry S. Truman image makes no sense. That was just the Chicago Tribune showing how low their opinion was of Truman. There was no falling down, just miscalculation.

Perhaps Popeye is the most relevant image as he gets his boost from an outside source - spinach. But unlike Wimpy, Popeye probably didn't have to borrow the money today with the promise of paying it back Tuesday. Cynics might think Wimpy was the better image to use..?

It would be interesting to see how they tested this ad. Did GM bring in people upset with the bailout or did they focus test against people open to seeing GM as independent again. My guess is more the latter. Perhaps it has a chance of getting people 'on the fence' to see GM as a fighter and survivor.

Personally, I think they are fighting the good fight. GM has not laid down and they are trying hard to win back public opinion. Unfortunately, this ad falls down in its ability to recycle history as a way to repair GM's image. Fortunately, their new products are giving them a true fighting chance.

Ford Enters the Sarcastic Electronic Greeting Card Industry

2010-11-17T20:34:00.000-08:00

If you are not familiar with someecards.com, checkout the site now. It's a brilliant site that takes a sarcastic stab at the greeting card industry.

Ford has become the first automotive company to sponsor someecards eCards. The Fiesta launch gives Ford a youth oriented product where it can have some fun with its media communications. Two eCards are now available on the someecards.com site that feature automotive messaging along with a "Sponsored by 2011 Ford Fiesta" label. It's a playful way to have some fun with the product and tap into the existing viral success of the someecards website.

The Ford Fiesta sponsored eCards are accompanied by a couple banner advertisements from the Fiesta campaign to help strengthen the alignment with the vehicle's marketing goals to drive consumers to the FordVehicles.com shopping site.

Toyota Highlander Takes a Shot at Frugality

2010-11-08T19:53:00.000-08:00

Jalopnik summed it up pretty well yesterday when they posted an article entitled "The Toyota Highlander Is Breeding Assholes" about the new ad campaign for the Highlander. It's a bit harsh, but it gets to the point and made me wonder if right now is the best time to be promoting obnoxious, stuck up children who look down on others in older cars.

The premise of the ad is that a child does not want their parents picking them up from school in an old station wagon. It's embarrassing when a dad pulls up in a Buick Roadmaster while the Toyota family's child has a shiny new Highlander SUV to brag about.

What Toyota forgets is that a Buick Roadmaster can be very cool. In fact, really cool in a fun car enthusiast way; hence, the headline slam from Jalopnik.

What bothers me most about the ad is its timing.

At time when frugal spending is in vogue, it is a bit counterproductive to insult families who are being sensible driving used, most likely paid off, cars. Though, I'm not surprised a car company is promoting buying a new car. Increasing used car sales or promoting keeping a car that is a decade plus old isn't good for business. Insulting frugal families isn't good marketing either.

Toyota Wants Your Ideas with a Twist

2010-11-08T19:01:00.000-08:00

When I first caught the news of Toyota launching a new site called "Ideas for Good", I thought it was your typical request for consumer ideas much like My Starbucks Idea or Ford's Your Ideas. However, Toyota is taking an unusual, though complicated, twist on the concept.

Toyota wants people to generate ideas from a handful of their technologies. If you are not familiar with Toyota's technologies that's okay as they provide links to details. For example get to know more about T.H.U.M.S.:

T.H.U.M.S. (Total HUman Model for Safety) is an advanced injury-simulation software that measures more than the conventional crash test dummy can.

It's an interesting approach. Here is a technology developed by Toyota now tell us what we should do with it beyond its original automotive application. So far there were no ideas posted on the site, but that probably has more to do with today being the first day of promoting the site.

Toyota is promoting the ideas site using television ads which is also a different route than Ford, Starbucks and BestBuy who kept their idea sites to digital promotional channels, not TV.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: October 2010

2010-11-07T20:44:00.000-08:00

BMW continues to rack up Facebook fans quickly. They were near 3 million fans at the end of October and a now over 3 million as of early November. What’s interesting isn’t BMW’s continued rapid growth nor is it Audi following close behind; instead, what’s interesting is another German luxury marquee has decided to play the Facebook fan game. Mercedes-Benz grew an astounding 65% in October and surpassed their own first million-fan milestone.

This month Lexus and Toyota both redid their profile images to include additional messaging. Lexus is cross-promoting their Twitter and YouTube accounts while Toyota takes a page from Dunkin Donuts, but with their own twist by featuring a fan’s vehicle. Toyota is also promoting a new shopping application for mobile phones called mLot.

Some brands kept up their brand page marketing as Cadillac continued to run reachblock ad units featuring their new Cadillac CTS Coupe that drove fans to the main Cadillac fan page. Volkswagen also promoted their brand fan page. The VW ad units featured the new Jetta that launched last month. What was interesting is that VW used to promote vehicles and bring people to their vehicle fan pages, not the main VW fan page. Seems they are making a change and focusing on the main fan page, not surprising as most of the action is on brand pages not vehicle pages.

Also interesting is quite a high number of fan pages seeing 20% plus growth in one month. Several of the brands didn’t seem to have ad units running in October yet they experienced some rapid growth typical of buying media.

Download the Excel file: Facebook Auto Fan File (October 2010)

Chevy Volt Ad Premiers on World Series Tonight

2010-10-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

"We're wanderers. Wayfarers. Even nomads. So doesn't it just make sense that we build an electric car that goes far... really far."

Chevrolet is getting ready for the Volt to hit the American road as we near the final months of 2010. This is the first consumer video promoting the production car.

Overall, I personally like it. It's not groundbreaking and maybe it should be, but I think Chevy is trying to normalize electric vehicles and make the concept more friendly, not just for Greens, but for everyone.

There are no MPG claims just some very small type about "25-50 miles of electric driving in moderate conditions." Also, the information about the car being electric isn't shared until the very end of the ad.

Chevy is also introducing a new tag line for the brand: "Chevy Runs Deep". Not sure where this is going but it's a bit confusing at the end of the Volt ad, since the ad is talking about the car running more miles than any other electric car. How that is "deep", or what "deep" even means from a brand positioning statement, is still lost on me. Will be interesting to see how Chevy, which I thought was called Chevrolet, evolves "deep" in coming marketing uses.

Will the “First Online Test Drive” Inspire At Least One Real Test Drive?

2010-10-24T19:57:00.001-07:00

Mitsubishi thinks you will be interested in driving their new Outlander Sport using your keyboard. To do this, they have rigged a SUV so that one can control it online.

I kept seeing the ads on TV and received some email from Mitsubishi (I signed up for updates months back), but didn’t realize until I went to the Outlander Sport micro-site that the test-drive is being held November 1-10. To participate in the “Live Drive”, there is a sign-up form that has to be sent before November 1 and those who register will receive an access code.

The drive looks like it will be similar to a consumer ride and drive event where several orange cones will be setup in a large, empty parking lot. The new Outlander Sport will then be controlled by a remote control.

“Live Drive”, “Virtual Test Drive”, “Online Test Drive” whatever they are called it is not something new. Every automaker I’m sure has had a brainstorming session around how can they get consumers to experience a test drive using a computer. If you can’t get ‘butts in seats’ you might have some luck getting people interested in a vehicle while they virtually drive with butts is in desk seats.

Toyota did their version of a Virtual Test Drive with their Yaris launch site a couple years ago. Yaris let users control four different camera angles and added some hot spots to get more information while the car drove through one of five user selected cities.

The Yaris drive highlights key local landmarks for those wanting to learn more about the cities the car drives through. Everything is video based so it is far more passive than what Mitsubishi is attempting to do with the Outlander Sport. The interactivity of changing camera angles or clicking hot spots doesn’t feel like a test drive; it feels more like switching camera views on a video game, not playing the video game.

I have a feeling the Outlander Sport “Live Drive” will be more like playing the game than controlling viewing perspectives. It’s an interesting novelty experiment. Will it move much product? Who knows? If it is executed well then it may catch some buzz and thanks to a somewhat healthy TV ad buy from a minor automotive brand it should get a decent initial audience.

I’m looking forward to my online test drive and will send an update to let you know what I think about the execution and since my family is in the market for a new SUV, who knows, maybe I might go from office seat to car seat as Mitsubishi hopes.

More details from USAToday.

Sponsorship Marketing: Ford's Activation at BlogWorld

2010-10-14T16:54:00.001-07:00

I’m at BlogWorld this week. As an avid blogger and someone who has experienced the amazing impact blogging has had on my own professional career and personal relationships, I love what blogging means to social media and in an age where everyone talking social media usually talks Facebook and Twitter we are all reminded, here at BlogWorld, that blogging is a major, major part of social media.

But this is an automotive marketing blog and like any good blogger I better know my audience and you didn’t come here to hear me wax poetically about social media; instead, I’m going to talk about a brand I have an affinity for – Ford.

As a Gold Sponsor, Ford is everywhere. They are one of three Gold Sponsors with the other two being Mandalay Bay and Kodak. Of course Scott Monty (@scottmonty) is here and so are some people from the Ford social media team including Brian McClary (@brianmcclary). The brand is present with large Ford logos throughout the building on several posters that communicate the way to rooms and featured behind speaker panels. The program everyone carries also has a healthy Ford logo on the cover.

Where it gets interesting is with Ford’s experience approach to social media. One of the things Ford does very well is create experiences with their products in a way that gets people talking – and blogging – about their immediate reactions with the brand. To do that at BlogWorld, Ford is hosting test drives with a full range of vehicles. Yes! I finally get to drive the new Mustang GT 5.0.

BlogWorld brings together an audience that loves to publish, by definition everyone here is a self-publisher, and here Ford is tapping into that natural instinct with conference attendees and they don’t need to do it with win a free trip or here is $5,000 for the best uploaded YouTube video; instead, the community responds by participating and then sharing their experience. This is true User Generated Content.

Ford is using a couple tools to promote their test-drives. The hashtag #FordBWE (BWE – stands for Blog World Expo and is being used by the conference as #bwe10.)

The test drives are being done via registration using the social media tool PlanCast and Tungle.Me. Both are simple applications that use existing social media log-ins (Facebook and Twitter) where people can “Count Me In” or sign-up for a specific date and time appointment.

I’ll be there tomorrow at the driving event and hope to share how Ford setup the event Mandalay Bay Casino. So, expect some impressions from me about the new Mustang GT 5.0 if you follow me on Twitter (@cbaccus.)

UPDATE:
Unfortunately I attempted to drive a Mustang GT 5.0 but failed. When I went down for my allotted time someone took another half hour in the car and I was tired of waiting so I decided to come back the next morning, but didn't get a chance then as the morning ended up being fairly busy.

Ford did one other thing I noticed Saturday morning. They decided to use a Promoted Tweet in the #bwe10 Twitter search thread. What this does is anyone following the hashtag #bwe10 (BlogWorld 2010, in case you didn't get the meaning) will see the Promoted Tweet on the top of all Twitter searches for that hashtag. I personally liked this approach since conference attendees are the ones most likely following the hashtag and it gave Ford an easy way to remind event goers that they were holding test drives at BlogWorld.

Full disclosure: I used to work for Ford at their Agency of Record Team Detroit doing Digital Marketing Strategy, but left there three months ago. I was not involved with this event or any of its planning before I left.

Honda Attempts to Add Some Swagger to Their Wagon

2010-10-12T16:17:00.000-07:00

If the Toyota Sienna is the "Swagger Wagon", does this latest commercial for the Honda Odyssey make the Honda minivan the "Hair Band Wagon"? And what appeal would a hair band wagon have besides being capable of hauling around a couple kids and a pair of Marshall amplifiers?

Sorry Honda but this one tries to come across as absurd fun, similar to the Toyota Sienna campaign but it unfortunately misses the mark. It just falls flat. It comes across as if the ideation team looked at what their main competitor was doing and decided hey we really need some music in our ad and should make the minivan cool again. Answer: Black cat, Marshall amps, and fireworks. Hmmmm.... maybe the ad needs more spandex and a drum solo?

How it's done.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: September 2010

2010-10-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

Let’s get the big news out of the way. BMW surpassed the 2 Million fan number September 28th. On July 5th they hit 1 Million fans, so in a mere 3 months they gained over 1.1 Million fans. BMW has been on a fan rampage and finished the month promoting their secret reveal (I’m guessing it’s the new BMW 6-series.)

Hyundai saw a massive increase in fans as they nearly doubled their fans in September from 41,653 to 82,773 fans. This was done in part by some reachblock ad units I did see Hyundai run on the Facebook site. Others doing reachblock ads where Cadillac and Toyota continued to promote their safety and user story ads throughout the month of September.

Honda worked on promoting their Honda CR-Z Hybrid, but the ad units drove consumers to the CR-Z vehicle page. Honda saw a typical 10% gain on the brand page. Unfortunately, I think they missed an opportunity to drive more fan traffic to their primary brand page. It’s interesting to note that at the end of September Honda’s luxury family member Acura decided to abandon their vehicle fan pages. It will be interesting to see if Honda makes a similar move with their product fan pages or if other brands will follow Acura’s lead here, especially as brands probably look to 2011 and 2012 as ways to increase social media efficiency as social destination effectiveness comes clear with years worth of supporting data.

MINI finished their major Facebook campaign where they gave away a MINI Countryman from their Facebook fan page. Fred Manuel Roldan Rivero from Lisbon, Portugal won the MINI Countryman and the brand shared the giveaway PR event with their fans. Overall it was a nice promotion for the Facebook fans but MINI didn’t really see any major bump in fans which I find interesting because this contest may have more to do with energizing its fans than say growing the fan base. I don’t have any of the ad units promoting the event, if there were any, but MINI only saw a mediocre 11% increase in fans in September and XXX% in August. It’s tough to judge the contest as I don’t know what MINI was trying to drive. I assume handraisers and contest entries but Facebook fan growth didn’t seem to be a goal or a goal that wasn’t met.

In another notable move, Scion experienced a 34% jump that probably was due to the launch of Scion in Canada. Previously, Scion was only available in the United States. Scion launched the brand in Canada last month and one can assume the launch helped some fan growth from those to our north.

Acura Shuts Down their Vehicle Facebook Fan Pages

2010-10-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

I have never been a big fan of automakers starting vehicle fan pages. There are exceptions to my thinking, for example halo cars like the Mustang or Corvette or when one vehicle is more compelling than your brand alone - like the Subaru WRX.

My thinking is you are lucky to get a person to fan any of your fan pages, so why not drive people to your brand fan page where you can talk about the car/truck/suv they are interested in, but also market some of your other products and brand messages. It's a great opportunity to showcase your product portfolio.

Acura has decided this is the way to go. They started with a strategy of having the Acura brand fan page, but also have a tab called "Vehicle Lineup" where fans could click and go to each vehicle fan page. Now Acura fans click the vehicles in the tab and are taken to the Acura.com website vehicle page and isn't this all about driving consumers to your optimized shopping site? Okay, it's not all about that, but you should be working to get fans to your .com site.

The other reason to not have unique vehicle fan pages, especially for brands like Acura that are more defined by the brand than one vehicle, is the extra resources to manage the vehicle pages and also you start segmenting your fans so your advertising becomes a discussion around whether to drive Acura fans or vehicle page fans. Why not simplify?

On an interesting note, Acura did not get the fans moved from the vehicle pages to the brand page. I'm guessing a lot of brands will not change their strategy because they cannot simply transfer fans from one product to a brand page. This is the old issue with sunken costs and how some tend to hold on to bad investments simply because they spent a bunch of money already.

It will be interesting to see if other automakers (and other industries) will catch on and focus on building their brand, not individual product pages.

The Kitten Meme's Influence on Automotive Marketing

2010-09-24T22:53:00.000-07:00

The Dodge Caravan "Kittens" commercial is strange. What else can you say about it? It's an odd jump to the concluding line of copy: "It has everything. So you can do anything."

After watching the Dodge ad I had to wonder if they were inspired by another recent, fairly viral kitten ad. A year ago Toyota Australia did a commercial with their Ninja Kittens that is far more entertaining with a better soundtrack, energy and storyline.

All of this makes me wonder if kitten memes, laser cats, and general fascination lately with being a 'cat person' is showing it's impact on automotive advertising. Should we expect more? Will it always be human- kittens or will this develop into something more emotional and gentle like Ikea's brilliant ad that recently featured cats getting comfortable in a store after closing? (ps - don't forget to checkout the Ikea behind the scenes video.)

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: August 2010

2010-09-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

It was bound to happen and September was finally that month where I didn’t have an opportunity to get the monthly Facebook Fans report up on the blog in the first couple days after capturing the numbers. Fortunately, I did record all the fan counts on September 3, but with the Labor Day weekend and a week of social media fun on the new job (more here at TechCrunch.) I didn’t get a chance until now to finally analyze this month’s data.

First, let’s talk about the brand I used to do digital strategy for: Lincoln. Lincoln’s growth in August definitely received a major jolt as it increased fans from 4,533 to 13,161 leading to a 190% increase. Most of this can be attributed to a contest Lincoln was running in July and August where the brand showcased a chance to be the first to test-drive the all new Lincoln MKZ Hybrid. Lincoln created a special tab for the MKZ and also accompanied the promotion with some email marketing and advertising on Facebook. Of course, the jump is significant, because Lincoln’s fan base is a small number so adding almost 9,000 fans will cause a big boost percentage wise.

Another brand with a rather small fan count, but also a generous gain in fans was Mitsubishi. They saw a 44% gain in fans as they added nearly 13,000 fans in the month. They had several sweepstakes where fans could win a Flip SlideHD Camcorder, $500 gas card, Nikon Digital SLR camera, and ultimately a trip to Japan. Giveaways are certainly an effective way to gain “Likes” as we see in several reports about why people “Like” a brand on Facebook with the number one reason being discounts, support for company number two, and number 3 to get a freebie (full study from ExactTarget.)

Finally, in the giveaway to get Fans Facebook strategy, Mini also participated with their Win a Countryman contest. They saw a strong 36% increase in fans. Product launches naturally tend to increase fan counts beyond the normal 3-6% organic growth, but by adding a giveaway Mini boosted their growth significantly.

Toyota continues to do a lot of marketing on Facebook. They continued throughout August with ads throughout the Facebook site where they mostly promoted their Auto-Biography contest where participants submit videos about their personal experience with Toyota. Toyota is letting the message come from customers, a very smart message after a year I’m sure the company can’t wait to be over.

The other big news for August is BMW is rapidly gaining fans to cross the 2 million fan mark. They just crossed 1 million fans back in July. Yet, they continue to still spend time on the BMW USA fan page. Segmenting fans by creating unique fan pages has never been a good approach in my book, especially considering you can segment your messages to your fan base by using Facebook’s features to send a message only to people in a particular geographic location. That issue aside, they are dominating in the automotive Facebook fan grab.

Have We All "Like" Lost Our Minds

2010-09-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

I was clicking through a Lexus ad for their new IS "Wield Precision" campaign when I noticed on the landing page at Lexus.com that I could "Like" the page. The hero image area of the page showcasing the car driving down a road had 167 'Likes' already. 'Like' of course is Facebook nomenclature for 'engaging' in an activity demonstrating one enjoys a piece of content. What started as a way to like someone's Facebook status update or like a photo posted has turned into 'Like' anything fever.

I just wonder what's the real point? Have we lost our minds as marketers thinking if someone clicks a 'Like' button that there is somehow more value to that view than just a page visit? Or have we as consumers lost our minds thinking someone cares we visited a web page and now we must show our satisfaction?

Even if someone does 'Like' the Lexus IS page it barely registers it on Facebook where the brand gets a small one line message that I did something. What I liked isn't even very clear (see image at right.) To clarify, I'm not picking on Lexus. I'm just using this latest example from the Lexus IS marketing team.

In the end, it really doesn't matter because Lexus did get a few more people to share an experience with only the cost of having a developer add a Facebook Like button.

Now please 'Like' this blog post... :)

Tweet Buick Social Media Trio for a Test Drive

2010-09-06T20:19:00.000-07:00

Buick is interested in appealing to a more youthful customer and they are making strides with the Enclave, LaCrosse, and now the new Regal. As part of their outreach, Buick has hired three social media "Ambassadors" (their word) where one can tweet the @DriveBuickChi trio and "the test drive comes to you", provided one lives in Chicago (that's what "Chi" stands for in case you were wondering...)

It's an interesting concept and surely takes some of the hassle out of car shopping for those who are serious potential buyers. I wonder though how many tweets will be people testing how this concept works with no intent of really buying.

They are tweeting pictures of test drivers like @BrianGainor (Brian Gainor) @LauraGainor (Laura Gainor) who tried out the LaCrosse last week. Laura is a social media strategist for a marketing+pr agency and blogged about her experience.

Buick is spreading the word by posting a photo gallery on its Facebook page. I'm not sure if other efforts are happening to get the idea some reach. They have also created a Facebook event from August 1 to October 31 for those who want to attend a drive. To further increase interest, test drivers can win VIP tickets to an event if they are lucky to find some tickets under the test drive car's seat.

I do like the idea of Tweet to test drive. It's an interesting idea and one that could work very well for a dealership. One wonders why this concept wasn't extended to a dealer instead of going with three social media experts. I get the obvious reason, but why not train a dealer and test-pilot how effective this can be and then broaden its reach to other markets.

DC Shoes Gymkhana has Its Matrix Revolutions Sequel

2010-09-06T19:36:00.000-07:00

I have enjoyed the Gymkhana series from DC Shoes featuring its co-owner Ken Block. In fact, in my best of 2009 Gymkhana 2 made the list. Unfortunately, Gymkhana 3 - the first to feature the new Ford Fiesta - is a sad sequel. There are no amazing moments, the car is a sad prop, the Ford logo gets its moment across a couple pairs of silicone mounds and there's enough black lighting to satisfy any college stoner's decorating needs.

Now to be fair this is Part I: The Music Video Infomercial alluding to the hope something great may come in a future part of Gymkhana 3, but starting out this way is no way to build interest for future episodes.

Gymkhana 1 was amazing. Gymkhana 2 kept it interesting and had a few great moments. This however is just sad. This is Gymkhana's Matrix Revolutions.

Nothing is really wrong with the rap by Cool Kids and the video is well shot, but it lacks any of the appeal or the fascination from the other Gymkhana videos and the Fiesta doing the electric slide in a few frames doesn't help.

One YouTube reviewer sums it quite well, "less rapping, more driving."

Perhaps all of this is to make the shoes and clothing more the star than the car, since this is an ad for DC not Ford and, if that is the case, the production team has done its job. They've turned the cool automotive lust of Gymkhana into a clothing commercial.

Facebook and the Death of Micro-Site

2010-08-22T06:57:00.000-07:00

There is a move in digital marketing to replace the micro-site with a Facebook fan page. The latest casualty is the Nissan Master the Shift lifestyle marketing campaign.

Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know this campaign since I previously covered it. It has been around for over 2 years. Nissan has done a great job with the email marketing efforts for the campaign where they are constantly giving away free sports related equipment to contest entrants. Regular email communications are sent as new content is added and contest prizes are released.

Basically, the program is a lifestyle marketing effort linking the passions of running, cycling, and yoga featuring three key personalities: Lance Armstrong, Ryan Hall, and Tara Stiles. The experience includes several videos showcasing different exercise and training tips while also promoting Nissan vehicles, the Nissan Altima was the lead vehicle for two years but now it’s been replaced by the Nissan LEAF.

This year Nissan shifted (pun intended) their micro-site to Facebook where all of the prior website’s content went into various Facebook tabs. This worked pretty well for the athlete content as each person has their own tab and video views seem decent; though, it’s tough to truly gauge as I’m not sure how much advertising was done to drive people to the Facebook page. Also, is some video views were probably done through YouTube and Google search, not all entirely through the Facebook experience.

One wonders though if the move to a Facebook fan page is a better, more effective, decision than keeping the micro-site.

The most significant issue I can see from the Nissan Master the Shift change is how buried the vehicle content is now. One can only get to the vehicle information using the Favorite Pages section of the Facebook fan page. The vehicle content really gets lost in the new experience, but this may be a result of the campaign’s goals having to do more with contest entries (the entry form is the first thing that shows up when one clicks an ad) and driving people to the unique content created for each of the athletes tend to be more primary objectives.

Another concern with moving to Facebook is that the user now has several interruptions that never existed with a micro-site. For instance, if a friend on Facebook initiates a chat, Nissan could lose that person’s attention. Also, any status update or new message information while on Facebook could further distract the visitor. There is of course just the fact that one is on Facebook and may simply and easily return to their Facebook news feed. The usability, call-to-action person in me questions how so many other clicks can interrupt the experience and thus lose the person Nissan is trying to reach.

The whole change from micro-site to Facebook fan page is an experiment. I would love to see how well the change is for Nissan, but without any primary data analytics it’s difficult to assess the strategic decision, but it’s an easy realization for the Nissan team as they can see if their content is getting a higher engagement rate by moving to Facebook.

Nissan is also launching an 18 stop event marketing campaign, as detailed here (though the story incorrectly says the Master the Shift campaign "began in April.") Getting out to events is a great way to reach this target consumer. It also provides another way, besides banner ads, to get the word about Nissan's working with these athletes and an additional way to promote their Facebook fan page.

Volvo Asks to be Part of Your Social Connections

2010-08-19T05:39:00.000-07:00

Volvo sent out a "Stay in the Loop" email that solely communicated connecting with the company on Facebook and Twitter. It's the first time I've seen any automaker send out an email communication out to their mailing list that only promotes the brand's social presence. Most emails are putting some sort of link to a Facebook page or Twitter account, but that is usually relegated to the end of a quarterly email communication.

There's nothing really significant here from Volvo, but it is interesting to see the brand solely promote its social links with zero promotion of a vehicle. What's nice is the call-to-action is straight forward, but do customers or potential customers really want your company sending them emails about liking them on Facebook?

Audi Petitions U.S. Facebook Users to Bring TT RS Here

2010-08-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

European sports cars that typically stay in Europe are often begged to be brought over by automotive journalists and die-hard enthusiasts. Audi is taking a different path, possibly to prove how much begging there really is for a their only available in Europe TT RS sports car, by asking social media participants on Facebook and Twitter if they are interested in signing a 'petition' to bring the TT RS to the United States. Supposedly, Audi will do it if there is enough interest.

As someone intimately familiar with product planning, the whole idea of asking random people in social media to show interest in your car is a bit ridiculous. Sure it creates some nice social media engagement numbers like app installs on Facebook, tweets on Twitter and comments on your brand fan page but is the effort truly reaching real customers of the TT RS. Product planning isn't about social popularity, but rather marketability and profitability of a product against the competition in its segment, at least that's a good portion of the decision. Asking random people if they want X product is not.

Regardless of how sincere Audi is about their 'petition', the effort now includes some advertising on Facebook and an application where one can share their seriousness for buying one and provided the images load -- they did not for me after many attempts -- one can share pictures of the TT RS.

Audi is definitely finding a new way to turn the begging done by enthusiasts into a social conversation and that at least is an interesting concept. Now we'll just have to see if 122 application Likes on Facebook is enough to influence product planning.

Dodge Wants Some Viral Appraisal

2010-08-12T04:55:00.000-07:00

Dodge is extending their "Freedom" TV spot with a new online video that has an elderly woman stopping by antique stores to get an appraisal for a photo of George Washington and a few colonial soldiers posing next to a Dodge Challenger.

I do enjoy the attempt to extend the campaign online with a video that pokes fun at the absurdity of the commercial's concept and it does show Dodge has a sense of humor about the idea (how could they not?) However, I wonder if the video is funny enough to get any significant views.

It's charming for a second, but I'm not a die-hard Dodge or Challenger fan so I'm not really the target audience for the video. It had only 100 views when it showed up in my recent Channel updates screen on YouTube; though, the video has only been live since late yesterday.

Personally, I'm loving this Dodge ad more: Dodge Tent Event

Honda Goes the Gamer Route Again, But Are They Missing the Mark?

2010-08-03T19:44:00.000-07:00

Honda is the online gaming brand of automotive marketing. Their latest effort is part of the Honda CR-Z launch called 3-Mode Mania. The game gets its name from the three different driving modes available on the car: Sport, Normal and Econ. It's an interesting way to showcase the different driving behaviors of the vehicle, unfortunately the game play is so basic one hardly notices any difference when selecting the different modes.

The Tron-like driving path is very simple with thin red lines displaying the track and you drive what looks like a Monopoly piece car; though, there is a choice of colors to personalize the experience. I tried the game a few times and found it a bit dull since it was too simplistic and like I stated earlier the modes really didn't provide much distinction in game play.

I do find it interesting though that Honda went with an online game for a 2-seat hybrid vehicle. The game for the Honda Fit made a bit more sense since the Fit did market to a younger audience, but the CR-Z seems like a third-car for empty-nesters. Unfortunately, it won't attract the former CRX fans as the CR-Z really missed the mark on being a reincarnation of that excellent, sporty 2-seater.

So my bet is the CR-Z is more likely to be bought by an over-50 demographic with a decent amount of disposible income who want a mild hybrid with a bit of a sporty feel. Personally, it was difficult just writing that last sentance because I'm still not sure who will really buy this car since it lacks decent hybrid numbers, missed the CRX reinvented crowd, and only sits 2 people without all the fun of typical topless or fast third car.

I'd also guess the target consumer is not much of a gamer, unless the brand decided to focus on youth; even though, hybrids barely make a dent in the younger age groups. Therefore, the CR-Z buyers are not likely to play the online game 3-Mode Mania. Perhaps Honda should rethink doing a game every time they launch a small car and instead focus on the activities of their likely buyers. Just a thought...

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: July 2010

2010-08-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

BMW and Audi are definitely proving all it takes to drive significant Fans on Facebook is a healthy marketing budget. Both brands had over 40% gains in July and both crossed the laudable 1 Million-Fan mark. Considering it took BMW years to cross the half-a-million-fan mark back in February 2010, where they celebrated the milestone by launching a YouTube video, it is interesting to see how ad impressions on the social media site can drive significant gains for aspirational, luxury car brands. (Note: the BMW Facebook Fan page was assumed by the brand in November 2009 where it had been managed and originally created by a BMW dealer in Spain. So, the first 1/2 million fans was dominantly, if not entirely, gained organically.)

Some of the smaller volume brands like Mitsubishi, Smart and Scion also experienced over 40% growth leading me to believe both also ran Facebook advertising this past month.

Toyota gained an impressive 38% fans in July. They were actively promoting their latest social media user generated content idea called “Auto-Biography” where the social media team selected a few stories to be “animated with the help of [their] artistic friends”… i.e. ad agency. This is interesting, as Toyota has been running several safety videos in response to their much publicized recalls.

Here we finally see Toyota recovering from the bad public relations and turning to the voice of the customer, which I think is a good move based on where the brand is today. Let the consumer voice showcase their passion for the products. It was a risky bet, except that Toyota approves every story before it is posted on the Facebook tab.

The only odd thing in July was a negative fan dip for the Infiniti brand. It would be interesting to see why this is happening. My guess is that some Infiniti fans are a bit turned off by the social media team’s wall posts promoting the Cirque du Soleil promotion; though, this guess is just that a guess. Looking at the fan page comments on the Cirque posts, several fans do enjoy the association. It still could be due to an increased frequency of the team pushing every marketing promotion on the page's wall. Without knowing the Facebook analytics and insight data, it is difficult for me to assess what is going on, perhaps their Facebook team should look at frequency of posts and also when the fan drop may have occurred since it is pretty rare to see a brand page lose fans in a month.

Get My Volt. How?

2010-07-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

So I was listening to Chevy's Volt pricing announcment and noticed Joel Ewanick, General Motors' vice president for North American marketing, was promoting a new website for the Volt using the web address: http://www.getmyvolt.com. So I tried it to see how I could get my Volt. Unfortunately, it just took me, after two redirects, to the Volt landing page on Chevrolet.com site that has been up for months with no calls to action to order a Volt (the image above is where I was landed.) Too bad, I was hoping to see how the effort differed from Nissan's Leaf pre-order website that was very clear in how to order their electric vehicle offering.

As part of the pricing announcement, Chevy hosted a Q&A where Chevrolet Volt marketing director Tony DiSalle and Volt vehicle line director Tony Posawatz shared some answers to questions mainly around availability and the ordering process.

UPDATE: They added a green button sometime yesterday to start the process with a dealer in certain markets where the Volt will launch, but I checked back this morning
and it's gone.

Can't Buy a Kia Soul? At Least Get a T-Shirt

2010-07-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

So you love the cute hamster ads Kia has been rolling out for the Kia Soul campaign, but you don't have $15,000 to buy a car to show that love. Well, Kia now has a solution - Hamstar! Hamstar is the campaign interpreted into cotton t-shirts with a hip outline of a hamster head.

I really love how Kia has owned this campaign by demonstrating several ways to engage with their younger fans. Whether it was the tour promotion, Facebook game, or the Moochie YouTube video series, Kia has kept their presence high as it targets the youth market.

Now if only someone can tell me why Hamstar needs a Twitter feed? @HamstarClothing is up and well doing nothing since a few promotional tweets and announcing to all 24 followers that the store is live; it's last tweet on July 21st. Oh well, I guess this helped check the "social" box on the marketing campaign project list.

Still, I really like the idea of adding a line of clothing to help further the campaign; though, one wonders if too much will make Kia "the hamster car maker"?

Saab Soft Launches 9-5 Via iTunes AppStore

2010-06-30T12:21:00.000-07:00

In iPhone and iPad application news, Saab released a new app for the launch of the 9-5. I believe this is Saab's first application on either platform and unfortunately it's not much of an effort.

The application merely mimics the content from their website where feature pages, a 360, an image gallery, and intro video are provided as content in the app. There is nothing more than the reuse of existing content repackaged for an application. It's very similar to what Mercedes did for the C63 AMG two-years ago.

I personally would've like to have seen some handraiser implementation within the application so the company could engage further with the app's users provided of course they are not disappointed after downloading something they basically could have seen on their iPhone or iPad's web browser.

Oh well, hopefully we'll see some more interesting things as Saab gets ready to spend big for their "Change Perspective" 9-5 launch.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: June 2010

2010-06-30T10:03:00.000-07:00

Well after a fairly mild, ho-hum couple months life is heating up on the automotive brand fan pages with several companies upping their marketing on the site and a lot of double digital month-over-month growth from several brands in June.

The big battle of fans was last month’s BMW vs. Audi battle royal. It seems both brands answered the challenge by working hard to get new fans. BMW had a staggering 36% increase in fans which is an insane growth percentage from a brand with already the highest numbers of major automotive fans on the social media site. They added 244,181 fans in one month!

Audi did very well too with a 16% growth rate and 103,255 fans added in June. That’s almost the total amount of Toyota Facebook fans; 107,389 fans to be exact.

I’m still trying to figure out what BMW and Audi did to drive so many “Likes” in one month. My guess is outreach to owners through Become a Fan messaging and some social media marketing on Facebook, but I can’t confirm either.

Toyota did a lot of marketing on Facebook this month, but they didn’t do it to drive people to the Toyota fan page; instead, they took users to their Toyota Safety landing page where they are working on their safety perception issue after many recalls.

Lexus had its own Facebook goals where they drove consumers to their Facebook fan page by enticing them with the new halo vehicle advertisement for the new LFA super car. The message must be getting through as my own father in-law, not a car guy at all, started asking me about the LFA one day on a Home Depot run; though, he saw the ad on television.

Honda reignited their love machine this month by running Facebook ads for their Everybody Knows Somebody Who Loves a Honda Facebook application and they even did a Father’s Day ad that tied in that Day’s message with Honda’s own campaign message (sorry I had a screenshot of the ad but must not have saved it.)

Mini and Infinti both had big jumps in fans with 32% and 43% gains respectively. Infiniti ran a campaign promoting their Cirque du Soleil contest that brought users to a Facebook tab promoting the contest. Meanwhile, Mini had its fun challenging Porsche to a race.

The Mini vs. Porsche effort definitely spawned some major engagement with its fans that mostly loved the idea of challenging the all mighty Porsche 911.

It certainly was a crazy June on Facebook. I’m curious what July will bring.

UPDATE: Thanks to one of my new Twitter followers @ChrisBrashear it seems Audi ran a photo upload contest in June which I'm sure was supported with some ad dollars on the site too.

Toyota Goes Digital to Market Safety Perception Gap

2010-06-30T06:29:00.000-07:00

Toyota is in a real tailspin lately after countless recalls and the latest JD Power Quality Rating that gave the automaker a terrifying drop from 6th to 21st place out of 33 brands. Some industry pundits feel Toyota has enjoyed a leisurely advantage from their customers’ perception of strong quality over the years while in reality it has been deteriorating. A recent episode of Autoline After Hours had host John McElroy commenting on how all of the news is finally showing some of the chinks in Toyota’s quality armor that many consumers have known this for years. (As a side note: If you like this blog, you'll love Autoline After Hours it is by far the best Auto Industry podcast. I highly recommend it for weekly viewing.)

Whatever the case with Toyota’s real or perceived quality and safety issues are they have launched a major digital media campaign to respond to the safety issue.

The initial response was Toyota’s Recall landing page, but now they are moving to a strategic response around “Toyota Safety”. The online ads are directing people to the new safety site that communicates some of Toyota’s efforts around building safe cars. They feature their IIHS Top Safety Pick ratings, their SMART Teams who conduct rapid on-site analysis of issues, and their TV spots (online video) feature safety engineers and families that trust the brand. “At Toyota, we’re currently investing one million dollars an hour to enhance the safety and technology of our vehicles.”

Toyota has even branded their five safety features under the “Star Safety System” which is now standard on all their vehicles. What is the system? It’s traction control, stability control, anti-lock brakes, electronic brake distribution, and brake assist.

The latest ad buy was one recently used by Chevrolet on Yahoo! Mail that uses a background look to the mail login page (see image at left.) They are also buying several key placements on Facebook to get the message out.

I really like Toyota’s Safety landing page. It provides four clear messages with some well-executed online video explaining the company’s commitment and seriousness about responding to their safety perception issue. After months of news stories reporting unattended accelerating vehicles --some true and some alleged hoaxes -- the company needs to show they make safe vehicles.

The question now is will we see a Toyota Quality landing page after their plunging JD Power Quality rating? If one types in http://www.toyota.com/quality the page is redirected to http://www.toyota.com/productleadership/#/Precision. This page does not look like it is ready for prime time as a destination for online media, but that could easily change if Toyota uses the same formula they have for the Safety and Recall landing pages.

Can We Please Permanently Getaway from Flash Mobs

2010-06-18T15:23:00.001-07:00

Flash mob MINI - l'attraversamento più lungo della storia! from Alice Coppola on Vimeo.

Mini Italy proves we all need to getaway from doing any more flash mobs. There is a Countryman Italian site the flash mob is promoting: http://getaway.mini.it.

P.S. - Sorry about Mini being the subject of the 3 of my last 4 blog posts.

Mini Trains to Upset Porsche's Piece of Iron

2010-06-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm allowed to be wrong. Right? Well in the case of Mini vs Porsche I'm now a fan of what this marketing mayhem has become especially with the latest piece that pits Porsche as Ivan Drago and Mini as underdog Rocky Balboa.

The best part of this execution is how Mini launched the "Mini Rocky IV" video on the video comedy site Funny or Die. The page is surrounded with ad units promoting Mini's event to race Porsche and to add to the consumer interest Mini is looking for someone to drive a Porsche Carrera S against a Mini Cooper S.

Mini Rocky IV - watch more funny videos

So I'll admit it. The Mini vs Porsche campaign is getting interesting and is generating a lot of dialog amongst fans from both brands and other auto enthusiasts. It's fun and getting really absurd, in a good way.

Just like Apple, never bet against Mini.