Yousuf Ali's Blog

Since this is the last blog post for the class, I decided to talk about what I believe the future holds for e-marketing in the automotive industry. We’ve seen large growth in social media actually being incorporated into the newer vehicles. For example, Mercedes-Benz has put features such as Facebook and Yelp into their navigation system. An example of how a car company has used social media to advertise its cars is Ford. Ford hired 100 bloggers and gave them a Fiesta to drive and give their review on the car. This was a huge success and the car saw a lot of sales when it was launched in the US.

Ford is working on a car called the “Evos” which is directed towards social media users. This car is designed to be for those people who like to be connected. An example is that it has a cloud system which links the drivers life to all other aspects like home, office and car. I believe cars will begin to be more engaged with the driver and consequently will start using more social media platforms. The downside to this I believe is that some social media sites may go out of fashion. For example, Myspace was very famous before Facebook came along. This could pose a possible threat to automakers. The future of e-marketing and cars is filled with potential and growth. Car makers can go many directions and I believe e-marketing will be a strong tool that will help car makers to reach a new level of success.

In an earlier class we analyzed the success of social media campaigns. One of those campaigns was Mercedes Benz’ super bowl Twitter campaign where 4 Mercedes Benz vehicles were “fueled” by Twitter users. Although this drew some attention, I really think Mercedes Benz could do better. Lets look at Mercedes’ brand image for a second. It’s aimed at high income earners who value a high quality car and are willing to shell out the big bucks for one. By doing a Twitter campaign, it seems like Mercedes is just desperately trying enter the social media scene without much thinking. For another marketing class, we are working with a financial planning firm who specialize i individuals who have an income of over $200,000 per year. These people are more likely to purchase a Mercedes. In a survey, we found that these people either don’t use social media or mainly use LinkedIn. If Mercedes Benz really wanted to use social media to increase awareness via social media, it seems LinkedIn would have been a better platform to use. It is more likely that someone from LinkedIn would be inclined to purchase a Mercedes Benz then a 15 year old on Twitter.

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An interesting thing I found about Indochino and Ferrari is that they have something in common. They both have a made-to-order system. Although Ferrari carries used vehicles, they specialize in building a Ferrari to the customer’s desired specifications. So what can Ferrari learn from Indochino? Since Ferrari is such an expensive product, there is a need for face-to-face interaction but I believe a business model like Indochino’s could work just as well for Ferrari. Here’s how: customer would pick the model, colour, specs, seats, rims etc for the car he/she wants, send it to Ferrari, arrange the payment and wait for the car to arrive. This seems a bit far fetched but I truly believe this could work with high net worth clients. The richer people who have multiple different Ferrari’s probably could not be bothered to go into the dealership and test drive each car, they would rather tell Ferrari how they want it and have it delivered. How would this benefit Ferrari? This could save Ferrari millions in hiring employees and making dealerships across the country. Canada already only has a few official Ferrari dealerships and in BC there is only one. If someone in northern BC wanted to buy a Ferrari, they would have to come all the way down here. By applying Indochino’s model, Ferrari would be able to gauge how important their dealerships are. This also works for Ferrari because it is a type of car that sells itself, a salesman’s input would probably not make a Ferrari buyer turn into a Kia buyer, the customer usually knows exactly what he/she wants and how much he/she is willing to pay for it. I’d say Ferrari should give it a try!

Click here to see Indochino’s business model in detail.

An interesting news story came up when I was surfing the net. A Honda dealership in Florida has used Facebook to increase sales of cars from it’s dealership. The manager took the dealership’s customer list, which had thousands of names and email addresses and identified those who were Facebook users. Then, the manager delivered “employee-pricing-for-everyone” on their news feeds.

This actually resulted in 615 new car sales which is the most for any Honda dealership in America for that month and made it one of the most successful Honda dealerships in America. Facebook’s head of automotive global marketing said that ads placed on users’ news feeds are more than eight times more likely to prompt a reader to “like” or comment on the item than those ads placed on the right side of the page and advertisers receive 10 times more recall from news feeds than the static ads since people are more likely to interact with items on their news feed.

This creates a big opportunity for not only car makers but other consumer goods manufacturers as well. Although this could lead to a wave of a new type of spam marketing, the numbers show that it could be beneficial for marketers to use this technique. Out of the $250,000 monthly advertising budget at the Honda dealership, 20% is for digital marketing and this Facebook campaign only costs $2000 per month The dealership manager says it is the best investment they have made. Is this just the start of a whole new level of massive spam marketing or a clever marketing tactic that only a few companies will be able to take advantage of?

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So does it really matter if content is generated from a company vs. users? Well, for Ferrari it definitely does. Ferrari is a brand that sells itself, so rarely does Ferrari make a commercial for their vehicles. Even when they do, its mainly played inside their dealerships or the commercial is made to promote a third party, like Shell. The following is a video that was put on YouTube 5 years ago, mainly a Ferrari commercial but made by Shell.

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This video was posted 5 years ago and has just under a million hits. On the other hand, this second video was made by a Ferrari owner (who was later sentenced to jail for wreckless driving) and has over 1.4 million views yet has only been on YouTube for 7 months.

Click on video to play

So does user generated content get more attention from people compared to company generated content? From the looks of it, yes it does. The reasons for this could be many. The most obvious being that the user generated video created some controversy and was played on TV news channels whereas the Ferrari commercial was played once in a while between TV programs. Another thing about this, is Ferrari the only company with such a low level of awareness for company generated content? After looking at a few user vs company generated  contents for companies such as Chrysler, I found Ferrari and other high end brands had much more hits for user generated content compared to company generated content. Does the Ferrari brand really influence people enough to care so much when one gets videotaped by the owner going over the speed limit?

You bet they do! Plenty actually. Not only do future Ferrari and Ferrari enthusiasts post their thoughts about all kinds of Ferrari models but owners themselves post on many different Ferrari forums. You would think that someone who can afford a Ferrari would be the last to go onto an online social community to discuss a car but theres tons of Ferrari owners actually on websites talking about their love for the brand, their ownership experience and even discussing non-Ferrari related topics.

This is a great place for marketers to learn what their customers like and don’t like. Many posters talk about their ownership and buying experience. This could provide a lot of value to marketers trying to learn how they can make their brand even better. For example, often owners complain how their vehicle took longer to ship then they had expected. A marketer could perhaps come up with a plan to make that wait time go by faster by providing some pictures of their vehicle being built in the factory. This would make the customer feel like they are a part of the Ferrari company and will increase brand loyalty. But it could be possible that Ferrari and even competitors are lurking the forums to get ideas for their next flashy car.

Cars are an interesting product when it comes to marketing, especially searching. Since the used car market is so large and diverse, there are many sites dedicated to finding used cars. On the other hand, new cars have more or less the same asking price since they come straight from the factory so therefore there are not many third party websites that can offer much help on pricing. The only thing they can give you is reviews and advice on the car.

The difference on used car sites are the pricing. Since markets in the automotive industry vary by region, it is difficult to find much of a difference in used car prices in one area. For example, cars with similar mileage and condition will be similar on craigslist as they will be on yahoo autos. The main feature on these sites is that there is a local search bar so it gives an incentive to the person visiting the site to stay within the site and keep searching. The following are a few screenshots of websites where users can search for cars.

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Another way to search for cars, especially for a specific brand, is to google it. When you google a certain brand, you receive a lot of information. This information includes different dealerships, contact information and websites to places where you can buy that brand. All these search tools lead to different results and different methods of finding a car of your choice. Ofcourse, there is great variation in all these methods and the best way to take advantage of all this information is to actually use it!

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Discussions on car related material are everywhere on the internet. Marketers working for car manufacturers should never have a problem finding someone critiquing their product. There are whole forums dedicated to different kinds of cars. Many of these forum members even meet up in real life once in a while.

The value marketers can receive from these discussion boards, if used correctly, is greater then any other source. The downside to many of these discussions is that there may be a strong bias. For example, in many Japanese car related forums, there is strong dislike towards American made cars. The opposite is also true on American car forums.

Below is an example from a local car forum where a user is contributing to a thread where the discussion is about buying either a Mazda 3 or a Ford Focus

Marketers can get a great deal of information from posts like these. From the above post, marketers at Mazda will know if they are properly competing with the Ford Focus. It will also tell Ford marketers on what they can do to match the level of popularity of the Mazda 3. This kind of information can come from primary research but could take months before finding any valuable insight.

It is no surprise that more people look up “Honda” vs. “Ferrari”. Honda has 1.2 Billion hits on Google wheras Ferrari has 556 million. Another difference between these two car companies is that Honda has paid advertising when you look it up on Google but Ferrari does not. Why do you think that is?

I believe marketing can help us solve why these two companies are so different online. Honda is a much more widely known brand. Many more people look up Honda because they are interested in buying one. On the other hand, not many people are able to buy Ferraris, and the ones that are, dont have to go thru much of a decision making process to buy one since theres only a few competitors in the Ferrari price range. Does this mean Honda is wasting their money on useless paid advertising? Or is Ferrari just smart enough to know that they are already at the top on organic searches.

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Many car manufacturers spend big bucks on making their car websites perfect by adding fancy features and visual media. These are all great things to do but will this really help if no one is interested in the car itself? Cars are one of the most expensive things people buy after homes and the research people do while searching for a car can takes months or even years. The suprising thing is that most popular sites for cars are not the manufacturers’ sites themselves but instead sites where all types of cars are aggregated into one.

An example of this would be the autos section on Yahoo! and cars.com. The main factor that influences the search behaviour of customers is the reliability of information on these sites. Sites such as Yahoo autos has sections with people’s and third party reviews where they discuss the car and its pros and cons. These features are not available on sites such as toyota.ca or honda.ca. The implications for marketers is that instead of focusing too much on the manufacturers’ site itself, more focus should be directed to third party websites which can ultimately make or break your product!

For a list of top car websites, click here!