Toyota takes aim at US broadcaster

by Marketing ON 24 March 2010

Under-fire Japanese car manufacturer Toyota has presented a letter to a US television network, demanding it apologise for falsifying a report on its vehicles.

Toyota has requested that ABC retract a report that implied that the company’s vehicles could speed out of control due to an electronics flaw related to their accelerator pedals.

“Toyota deserves a public retraction and formal apology from ABC News for your irresponsible broadcast,” Christopher Reynolds, Toyota vice president wrote in the letter.

But the broadcaster hit back, maintaining that its report was unbiased, legitimate and newsworthy.

“(Whether the tests) identified a significant problem in the design of the Toyota electronic throttle control system, or Toyota is correct in asserting that (the Southern Illinois University professor’s) tests are flawed… it was legitimate and newsworthy for ABC to report on the tests and claims,” explained a statement released by ABC.

The stoush follows a rough period for Toyota, which is continuing to face accusations that its vehicles have electrical problems that could cause danger to its occupants.

However the carmaker has increasingly fought against the claims, reiterating that it has found no problems with its electronics, its mechanical fixes are sufficient and criticised the media and other critics of rushing to judge before hearing the whole story.

A mean campaign

by Marketing ON 19 November 2009

Background

The Holden Dealer Team (HDT) was a big hit in the 80’s, thanks to its owner and advocate Peter Brock. The cars the company produced are now Australian icons and collectors items worth many thousands of dollars.

Almost 30 years have passed and HDT has been resurrected by friend and fan, Peter Champion. The company is now producing a series of tribute cars to the 80’s classics, modeled on the current VE Commodore, as well as planning a whole new generation of HDT vehicles.

The most recent model is the Blue Meanie – a reinvention of the truly iconic 80’s road beast. Only 250 of these vehicles will be produced. This new product had to be launched to the public, but how?

Brand: Blue Meanie
Client: HDT
Agency: Jack in the box

Objective

The objective was to find a way to achieve mass target market awareness of the new vehicle, within certain budget constraints. The key was to find a way to reach ‘opinion leaders’ within the target market, allowing them to spread the Blue Meanie message to their various social circles.

Strategy

It was agreed that one of the most concentrated occurrences of target market members would be at the Bathurst 1000 race event over the weekend of the 9-11October 2009. HDT negotiated a deal with Super Cheap Auto for a prime position in their marquee at the Bathurst Race weekend. It was here that HDT would unveil their Blue monster. The strategic challenge was in the discovery of a mechanism to attract people to the unveiling and generate continued discussion about the car beyond the event.

The team at Jack in the box devised a launch campaign, with the core concept being a competition to win the first ever test drive in the new Blue Meanie. The target market would enter by completing an online registration form via computer kiosks displayed at the Blue Meanie stand at Bathurst.

Execution

The concept was based on values of exclusivity and prestige – the car was rare and special and only a privileged few would have the opportunity to experience it. The competition was supported by flyers and temporary tattoos mass printed and distributed around the Bathurst crowds. A number of drop and pull-up banners were also produced to display at the Blue Meanie stand. A dedicated Blue Meanie website was developed, designed as the entry point for interested punters, sending them on a journey to HDT’s main site. It was turned live on the morning of Friday 9 September – until then a countdown was the only graphic on screen.

The final campaign piece was a banner advertisement booked in the Sydney Morning Herald for the morning prior to Bathurst, the 9th of October.

In addition, HDT were privileged to have Bev Brock unveil the Blue Meanie and Peter and Bev’s son James also in attendance at the launch.

Results

On Friday 9 October, the Blue Meanie website received 2,169 visits and 15,929 page views, and the average time spent on the site was 4.01 minutes. Of those visitors, an impressive 79% originated from referring sources, such as the Street Commodores forum, Just Commodores forum, Holden Commodore Club and even the Ford Forum. Twitter and Facebook both went crazy over the Blue Meanie, thanks to a few seeds strategically planted by the Jack in the box team.

This is proof of the power of social media and networking within car-enthusiast circles. The Blue Meanie website continues to receive between 100 and 200 visits a day and online discussion is still circulating about the car.

HDT received over 600 entries to the test drive competition.
All entrants are now subscribed to the HDT database.
40 purchase enquires were lodged via the Blue Meanie and HDT websites, and
Three vehicles have been sold (a Blue Meanie can cost $100,000+)

Within budget constraints, HDT were able to target their advertising to a select ‘opinion leader’ market and the use of the competition meant the awareness was continued beyond a single exposure at the event. When the test drive winner is announced, the test drive will be filmed and uploaded to YouTube and online forums, continuing the process and spurring yet another round of online discussion and buzz.

Emotional media: building brand on radio

by Marketing ON 24 June 2009

You’re sitting in your car in peak hour traffic on your way home listening to two idiots talk about ‘crazy things their ex’s have done’. You can’t see them but you know they’ve got heads like dog poo because they’re radio announcers. If they were good-looking they’d be on TV.

The only exceptions to this rule are Hamish and Andy. The fact that Andy dates supermodel Megan Gale is probably enough evidence he hasn’t got a face like a shrivelled piece of fruit. The thing is though, you’re still listening despite the fact it’s all drivel. And that is what makes the stations money. You little statistic you.

Luckily for the ugly ones, radio listeners are very loyal. Most generally pick a station and stick to it and, thanks to Melbourne/Sydney/Dubai’s traffic problems; we often end up listening for hours.

It is also an emotional media. We tend to get attached to the people and actually want to know what their husband/wife said in bed last night. It makes us feel better about ourselves. These little, personal aspects connect us as humans.

However, there are some shocking radio ads out there. Think droning voices or high-pitched squeals that are equally painful to listen to, or people trying to imitate animals or tacky American accents. And I am soooo sick of the telephone voice treatment used on anything to give it a more ‘interesting’ twist, but when everything has it….

Although it’s possible to run a successful radio campaign, and God knows many do, there are a few issues with radio as an advertising medium that ought to be discussed.

Why is it so hard to build a brand on radio? Is it because it lacks the visual aspect? Can it really be successful in a sphere other than as a retail driver?
Commercial radio stations are generally very similar – I defy you to define the difference between FOX and Triple M for instance – so where is the scope in selecting a target market? Stations need to differentiate themselves and stop being so blinkingly unoriginal. I liked Nova when it first started, but it’s now simply another FOX with different characters.
There is also the issue of appropriateness of ads. Children and 40 year olds are going to be listening to the same station. How do you handle complaints from a tearful mother that her eight-year-old daughter knows all the words to a premature ejaculation ad?
Where have all the jingles gone? They are a fantastic marketing tool but have virtually been ignored in recent years due to apparent intellectual snobbery. Jingles are one of the easiest ways to define a brand and get people to remember it.

The reality is that radio can occasionally be a quite cost-effective way of advertising. It is one of the most powerful rapid attack forces for business and can hold its own against its big brother, TV. Or can it? Comments?

Gamers the new influencers in the auto market

by Marketing ON 6 February 2009

Ziff Davis research provides insights and marketing direction for the struggling car industry.

According to Ziff Davis research, gamers are focused on more than just playing games. They’re also avid car enthusiasts who influence each other about brands and features for upcoming purchases.

About 75% of gamers give their peers advice about which brand of vehicle to buy, up from about 63% last year according to 1Up, which partnered with Surveynetwork.com to poll more than 1,600 U.S. readers of its content (both online and print) in early August.

The results show that gamers trade automotive advice fairly consistently. On average, respondents said they had made vehicle recommendations to three of their peers in the past six months and nearly half of the gamers surveyed recommended vehicle features to their friends, while 40% had advised their friends on how much a new or used car should cost.

As Andrew Cordwell, national sales director, IGN.com, a popular online gaming resource, Australia highlights:

“The research shows us that IGN gamers are powerful influencers in the car sector. This is ideal, as IGN readers are cost effective to reach and educate via the IGN website – a welcome relief for the car industry which faces pressure from every direction.”

Utilising the range of advertising channels on IGN is essential to educate gamers on car brands. These include; display and rich media, microsites, launch centres, offline events such as Black Beta and Taste Test, as well as content integration into editorial.

“The opportunities on IGN have magnified with the recent site redesign, which combines cleaner and less cluttered content pages with cutting-edge design which gives advertisers even greater creative scope, immersion potential and branding opportunities, while continuing to provide millions of users world-wide with the latest in up-to-the-minute videogame and entertainment news, reviews and videos,” Cordwell added.

IGN has more than 34.6 million users worldwide, and around 508,000 unique visitors in Australia. 79.5% of IGN readers are male and 159,000 of IGN’s audience are in the 18 – 34 years age bracket. According to the latest Roy Morgan Research from June 2008, the IGN audience in Australia, compared to other gaming sites, is more likely to be younger males under 35, working in professional/manager roles and more actively social with friends (seeing movies, attending concerts). They are also far more likely than other gaming sites to be very active online by accessing the web.

IGN.com was also recently recognised as Australia’s ‘Best Online Gaming Publication’ at the annual Australian Interactive Entertainment Association Awards.

Prose and Cons: Monocle, Gillete and General Motors

by Marketing ON 10 April 2008

One-eyed view

Tyler Brûlé has graced this column before as the global style-setter of Wallpaper* founding fame. Brûlé travels the world nowadays overseeing a respected trend spotting and branding empire. His latest, much publicised, venture is Monocle, a magazine best described as an eclectic mix of current affairs, fashion, design and literary prose (not to mention a manga section). It is part The Economist, part Vanity Fair and part The New Yorker, but, alas, if the first issue is anything to go by, not in the same league as any of those. It is thankfully free of celebrities and gossip, but doesn’t compensate by bringing up issues of notable gravitas. The cover story on the Japanese navy was particularly uninspiring, despite the pronouncements of an exclusive. And its accompanying bland cover photo belied the usual artistic inspiration of Brûlé. The B5 size is nice and the concept of dividing the magazine into five distinct sections (An A to E of Affairs, Business, Culture, Design and Edits) is great, even though it’s hard to grasp the split points and grapple with the fact that many articles straddle the labels.

The magazine is aimed at global business travellers with above average incomes and has a realistic circulation target of around 70,000 issues per month. Subscribers also get full access to a regularly updated website (www.monocle.com). I picked up my copy in Singapore, but tired of reading the narrow columns on the busy, matt paper stock pretty quickly on the flight home, despite locally themed stories on Jeff Kennett and Jetstar. It’s early days yet and I’ll give the magazine another chance before finalising my commitment; but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was disappointed with the first issue. Maybe it was trying too hard or perhaps my expectations were too high, but when I turned to the business section and saw one of the world’s biggest brands referred to as ‘MacDonald’s’ (sic) I wondered whether Monocle had just torched its credibility among some of those intelligent global-citizens it was aiming to reach.

Stubble trouble

When Gillette released a revolutionary five-blade (arguably six, if you count the single trimmer blade on the back) razor in the US last year The Economist magazine cheekily calculated that by the end of the century the 14-blade razor would be de rigueur. Shaving at that time will hopefully have been long replaced by some robotic laser procedure, although, given I am still awaiting the flying car, I won’t be putting the shaving cream away anytime soon. Gillette launched the new ‘Fusion’ razor in Australia earlier this year, but may find it hard getting the masses to upgrade despite the company’s big budget, optimism and proven track record with innovation. Motivating consumers to switch and overcome product inertia may be a major marketing issue, particularly given a recent advertisement in the US where Gillette is comparing the new model to their hugely popular MACH3 (Prose & Cons shaver of choice) and urging consumers to switch.

Gillette is arguing that eight years of innovation makes the new Fusion a better shave than its previous offering. Sorry Gillette, but I don’t buy it and if a small, totally unscientific sample I’ve conducted is reflective, neither will many other people. At around five dollars for a replacement cartridge I think the acceptable shave price-barrier has been breached. Economies of scale may bring that down, but people these days don’t accept the notion that a product is better just because an advertisement says so – especially if the current product works satisfactorily. As marketers understand, one person’s ‘better’ is not necessarily someone else’s. The old adage ‘build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door’ means nothing, when the best selling mousetrap remains the old-fashioned wood and spring one.

Another dimension

Flicking through the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition recently (for research purposes, I swear) I came across a three-dimensional advertisement by GMC (a General Motors brand that makes light trucks, referred to as ‘pick-ups’ in the US). Using the kitsch three-dimensional red and blue cardboard glasses, the reader could view the latest GMC Sierra pick-up (and, yes, swimsuit models). They could also visit the associated website (www.si.com/3d). The website not only boasts more bikini three-dimensional pics, but also a nifty ‘motion parallax’ gallery that allows you to add motion to images using the mouse. When I tired of the girls I decided to visit the GMC site to see how it had incorporated its sponsorship into its website.

I found no three-dimensional images, no ‘motion parallax’. Nothing! While the website was fine and covered all the necessities, it was a pity that on the day I visited, the swimsuit edition promotion had no presence. These option-laden light trucks seemed to be the perfect product for such technology, allowing the viewer to experience the presence of their size and gadgetry. I know locally three-dimensional imagery was generating a bit of a buzz a few years back, but it was never fully exploited. Given the modern emphasis on high-definition and interactivity I think it’s time local advertisers revisited it. In a cluttered world, more clutter of an extra dimension may be the best way to truly stand out. Bikini-clad girls are optional.