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News and Industry Features
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Ford fuses global marketing efforts
Ford Motor Co. has saved hundreds of millions of dollars by combining its worldwide design and engineering operations into a single, global product development organization. Now, it wants to do the same thing with marketing, The Detroit News reports. In February, chief marketing officer Jim Farley tapped Henry Ford's great-great-granddaughter Elena Ford to spearhead this effort to merge the disparate parts of the company's global marketing apparatus and make sure they are literally on the same page. Though the savings are unlikely to be on the same scale as on the product side, they are no less important as the company works toward its goal of returning to profitability in 2011. Marketers from London to Shanghai are now working together on the launch of each global product, starting with the all-new Ford Focus that will debut at the Detroit auto show in January. From there it will go on to its European debut in Geneva and its Asian launch in Beijing. Before, Ford's marketing and public relations organizations in each of these regions would have developed their own campaigns in a vacuum.
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Get in Shape, be Fit and Stay Ahead of the Curve – The One-hour a Day Social Media Workout Plan
Following the training plan for 60 minutes daily will get you into the desired ‘web 2.0 shape’
More info on the Digital Dealer Conference
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Relating, Not Translating: How to Reach the Hispanic Market Online, Today and Mañana
More info on the Digital Dealer Conference
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Inching out Prius for best commercial of the year
MSNBC.com's sixth annual summer TV commercial contest saw an ad for the Toyota Prius almost take the top spot. At  first it looked as though the Prius ad, where people dressed as flowers and butterflies pop up in tune to "Let Your Love Grow," had the best commercial honor in the bag, writes MSNBC. "It was weird, it was happy, it used cool technical elements, it even had a YouTube behind-the-scenes explanatory video. Definitely a neat ad. But just when it seemed like the Prius was on the fast track to victory, it was knocked flying by a Crazy Train." Bottom line: This year's best commercial honor goes to Ozzy Osbourne for his series of Samsung Mobile cell phone ads, specifically, one in which he must text to make himself understood, and another in which he uses his phone as a personal assistant, including using it to discover a bathroom he didn't know his mansion even had. See the Prius ad
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Ad spend falls; Cable shows some growth
U.S. advertising spending was measured at $56.9 billion in the first half of 2009, a decline of 15.4% - or $10.3 billion - compared with first two quarters of 2008, according to data released by The Nielsen Company, Marketingvox.com reports. Cable TV ad spending was the only medium to show growth through the first six months of the year (+1.5%) despite the fact that Nielsen reported cable ad spending was down 2.7% through Q1, MarketingCharts writes. Nielsen found that cable TV Services picked up its ad spending 62% to almost $500 million, a direct result of ad buys this year leading up to June's DTV transition. Earlier this year, Nielsen reported that only 6% of households in the US were not ready for digital TV... Automotive ad spending once again emerged as the largest product category, despite cutting back 31%, or $1.68 billion, Nielsen reported. Local auto dealerships also cut back spending significantly, declining 26.2% in the first half of 2009.
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Advice for VW, GM, Chrysler in tapping new ad agencies
Volkswagen has announced that it is looking for a new advertising/communications partner. Chrysler has just announced that they are considering non-roster agencies for projects. Bob Lutz at GM has said that the agencies for the remaining GM brands have six months to demonstrate that they have the chops to remain part of GM’s stable of agencies. A rash of car companies re-evaluating their agency partners. So what should these companies, or for that matter any automotive manufacturer, look for in an agency? The next five years are going to be the most competitive in a generation. The “new normal” annual sales volume for the US will be 14-16MM units, nowhere near the 18MM the market achieved a few years ago, let alone the 20MM+ some forecasters anticipated. --Business Week commentary by Cameron McNaughton, Principal, Tree Farm Partners.
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Hispanic media: Autos, retailers down, telcos, satellite TV bright
Advertising in Spanish-language media fell 6.58% in the first half of 2009 in a decline that is unprecedented in the U.S. Hispanic market but less than half the 15.4% drop Nielsen recorded for the general market compared with the first half of last year, AdAge reports. The top 50 advertisers in Hispanic media spent 5.6% less during the first half of this year, compared with the same period in 2008, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Three of the top 10 -- Procter & Gamble Co., Johnson & Johnson and Toyota Motor Corp. -- cut their spending 20% or more. While all the carmakers and most of the retailers among the top 50 Hispanic advertisers were down by double digits in ad spending -- with the exception of Home Depot, up 11.9% -- the brightest spots were telecommunications marketers and satellite TV companies. Some marketers are doing more with less. Hispanic agency Conill used radio with great impact by creating a spot during a traffic report in which the reporter described freeway conditions amid clunking sounds, then advised listeners who thought the noise was coming from their cars to buy a certified preowned Toyota. Other spots interrupted music with grating noises and the same message.
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Washington Auto Show hires new ad agency
The producer of The Washington Auto Show has picked White+Partners as its agency of record, the Washington Business Journal reports. The bid was highly competitive, with around six to eight agencies invited to respond to the request for proposals. Herndon-based White+Partners will handle advertising and brand marketing for the Washington Area New Automobile Dealer Association’s annual car show, which runs Jan. 27 to 31 next year and features hundreds of new cars and trucks and dozens of manufacturers in the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. It is the first time White+Partners is working with the car association. The former agency of record for the show was Spokany & Co., which shuttered after last year’s event.
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Getting Ahead does not Require More Budget!
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Liquid Motors launches social media marketing service
Liquid Motors, an Internet marketing solution provider for auto dealers, announced Tuesday the release of its Social Media Marketing product. Many of the social media sites offer classified advertisement sections for their communities and this new service provides auto dealers the ability to advertise inventory on popular social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.
[FULL STORY]
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Digital Marketing/Advertising On-premises
Successfully market directly to your clients while they are in your store!
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G.M. extends eBay program
A pilot program established by General Motors to sell cars in California on the eBay online shopping site will be extended through the end of the month, with G.M. reporting a sales bump in its Western region since the campaign began in August, The New York Times reports. Data shows that through Aug. 30, prospective buyers visited dealers’ virtual showroom sites more than a million times, and that nearly 4,000 potential deals were initiated online, on the phone and in person. No word on how many of those discussions actually resulted in sales, although G.M. said this week that it achieved a 41 percent sales increase in the West.
[FULL STORY]
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Digital Dealer
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How to build that dynamic E-mail list
by Gary Nixon
I grew up practicing the maxim that every cloud has a silver lining, and you’ll find one even in this dark-cloud market if you’ll simply look at the situation as opportunity. I realize many readers are doing the best they can just to hang on today. Each dealer I speak to is looking closely at every single expense with the goal of dramatically reducing each while increasing business. One expense that can be reduced significantly is marketing and promotion. Yet many of the dealers I speak with continue to use expensive non-technology-based means for advertising their products and services, such as hardcopy mailers. I encourage these dealers to reconsider those expenditures and look closely at e-mail marketing as a better alternative. E-mail marketing continues to be the most cost effective way of communicating those important dealership promotions/announcements and service due notifications with customers and prospects. A recent Aberdeen Group study confirmed this fact: “While 60 percent of marketers plan to cut their traditional marketing budgets this year, 47 percent of marketers plan to boost their e-mail marketing budgets,” the study reported. Now more than ever before, dealerships must look at the most cost effective way of marketing/communicating to their customers/prospects resulting in achieving the most effective return on investment (ROI). Read more
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ARCHIVE
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Issue 4
September 2, 2009
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August 5, 2009
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June 24, 2009
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Issue 45
June 17, 2009
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June 10, 2009
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Issue 42
May 27, 2009
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May 20, 2009
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Issue 40
May 13, 2009
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Issue 39
May 6, 2009
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Issue 38
April 29, 2009
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Issue 37
April 22, 2009
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