STATE OF THE INDUSTRY
Setting the Stage: The CASE for the Future of the Automotive Industry
How data is being measured to help marketers effectively increase awareness and sales for CASE (connected, autonomous, shared and electric vehicles).

Tyson Jominy – Senior Director, Automotive Consulting and Analytics, J.D. Power & Associates
Alex Roy – Editor-at-Large, THE DRIVE

What changes in the automotive sector warrant watching? This presentation examined the trends and background of four types of cars that have the potential to disrupt the marketplace – CASE: Connected, Autonomous, Shared, and Electric Vehicles – focusing on the electric segment.

Key takeaways:

• The auto industry is in a period of rapid change: from 2009 – 2017, retail sales have increased but are expected to have a slight dip by 2019.
• Electric vehicles are broken down into two categories: Plug-in electric (PHEV) and Battery electric (BEV) – we have seen mild increases and decreases in share over the past five years for both electric vehicles.
• There is a common misconception that EVs are overpriced, but a closer look shows that is not the case – when compared to other vehicles in the market, EVs are $0.7k below.
• This is the time for EVs – consumers should take advantage now.
• Twenty years from now, electric cars will be the tipping point and will stimulate sales – we will see an increase over time first from China, Europe, and then within the United States.
• Near-term is mild, not wild – the mild hybrid electric is going to explode in 2019.
• The future of the auto industry will focus on things like subscription services, for example.
• CASE – sharing is already here, but there are so many iterations of it, electrification is here, connectivity is here, but autonomy will be last and it will be a hurdle to get over.

Presentation:

Video:

---

METHODS AND MEASUREMENT
Revving Up the Digital Automotive Customer Journey
Joy Joseph – Managing Partner, [m] PLATFORM Collective Intelligence, GroupM
Ikechi Okoronkwo – Director, Marketing Sciences, Advanced Analytic Lead, MINDSHARE
Trevor Hettesheimer – Digital Marketing Manager, Volvo Cars of North America

Using predictive analytics to drive strategic planning, Volvo and Mindshare created a partnership to develop an approach. Like many car businesses, Volvo is in constant change. By identifying issues such as the key symbols of the consumer journey, Volvo is able to create a scorecard for measurement.

Key takeaways:

• There is a funnel effect in automotive.
• Engagement and collaboration are essential – you cannot work in silos – in the auto industry you have to move quickly and capitalize on what others are doing – react to what others are doing in the market.
• Using scorecards to evaluate and measure progress (i.e. see what is working) builds confidence and trust with partners.
• Media plans need to be adaptive and transparent.
• MMM works well, but over the long term you need to have a good brand equity model in place as well – you need to have these working side-by-side.
• Build brand resonance.
• Use your website to control the journey of the consumer – your website is your 24/7 showroom.
• Ordering a new vehicle online is becoming more popular and is expected to grow.
• Your brand’s story is important – perceptions align with what your customers believe so make sure your brand reflects this.
• Remember that what you want vs. what your customer wants may be two different KPIs.

Presentation:

Video:

---

Solve Marketers’ Attribution Challenges Using Location Based Analytics
Valentina Marastoni-Bieser – SVP, Marketing, Cuebiq

Mapping the consumer journey is a powerful value to bridge the gap for marketers. In this presentation, bridging the gap between online and offline with location data in the automotive purchase process was discussed through understanding customer behavior on the lot, comparing customer visits to competitors, dissecting performance by channel, and closing the online interactions with actual sales.

Key takeaways:

• Bridging the online and offline gap with location data comes from: scale, accuracy, density, and privacy.
• Good data = actionable insights. Non-reliable data = misleading insights.
• Leverage location analytics to better understand consumer behavior before and after consumers visit the dealership.
• Benchmark your success – leverage industry benchmarks to better gauge your success vs. your competitors in driving dealership visits.
• Measure cross-channel advertising ROI – use visitation as a unified metric to understand and compare how each channel is performing in driving dealership visits.
• Understand the impact of your media investment by vertical.
• Benchmark campaign success, put this into context, look at your competitors.
• Dwell time and time of visit can help you get a sense of how your consumers engage with your brand.

Presentation:

Video: 

---

DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING
Automotive In the Age of Assistance
Kyle Keogh – Automotive Industry Director, Google

Today, more and more aspects of consumers’ lives are powered by mobile and digital. They can get exactly what they want, when they want, making them more empowered and demanding than they’ve ever been. The automotive brands that will win mindshare and market share are the ones that create personalized, assistive experience across sales, service, and retention. Google’s Automotive Industry Director, Kyle Keogh, shared insights into today’s consumer behavior and how brands and dealers can best position themselves to drive into the future.

Presentation:

Video:

---

Driving Viewers Down the Funnel With OTT For Auto
Rob Aksman – Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Brightline

How ARE OTT and streaming TV and data transforming advertising? This presentation discusses how to leverage the advanced capabilities of connected TV to drive viewers down the funnel.

Sequence of OTT Ad Encounters:

• Awareness – Capture Imagination (e.g., sponsored trivia/games; extended brand content; tent-pole extension)
• Engagement – Get Hands-on (e.g., car colorizers, rotators, builders; feature polls/selectors; personalized feature callouts)
• Drive Action (e.g., dealer locators; local sales events; addressable offers)

Presentation:

Video:

---

Influencing the Millennial Car Decision Journey
Beth Rockwood – VP Portfolio Ad Sales Research, Turner
For most Millennials buying their first car, brand loyalty is low, and information needs are high. Because Millennials’ path to purchase differs from older generations, it is more critical than ever for marketers and agencies to understand how to leverage different media platforms to deliver the right messaging to consolidate brand affinity early in the Millennial journey. In addition, notable differences between men and women should be considered.

Key takeaways:

• Millennials are becoming more important for auto purchases.
• There are six core decision stages in a cyclical journey: Start, Explore, Choose, Deal, Drive, Open.
• Only 15% of consumers proceeded sequentially through each stage in 2017 (this has dropped from 33% in 2014).
• Most people drop off at the Explore stage – this limits the opportunity you have as a marketer.
• Millennials want to be sharing in the beginning of their purchase journey vs. Total Adults wanting to share only at the end.
• Millennial males want visibility, personalization, location, and sharing earlier in the journey than Millennial females.
• With respect to awareness, Millennial males vs. females, the top 5 channels are:
  o Males: Outdoor posters, outdoor video ads, celebrity recommendation, TV ads, and mobile internet ads.
  o Females: Mobile internet ads, TV ads, car ads in IM feeds, emails from car brands, and ads for local dealerships.
• Bonding/connection time is more important for women – this is an area where we see an opportunity in media and in the showroom.
• Millennials consider multiple auto brands but lack confidence in their decisions, particularly during explore and choose stage.

Implications for marketers:

• Utilize ad tech to target auto intenders by CDJ Stage/Segment on linear TV and digital.
• Messaging should be optimized to address the unmet communications needs of consumers and ease anxiety over making purchase decisions.
• Social content/sharing platforms should be employed before and after purchase to empower brand advocacy/confirmation, particularly for male millennials.

Presentation:

Video:

---

How Social Influencers Drive Connection with Consumers and Brands
Sara Hasson – SVP, Strategy & Insights – Automotive, Univision
Andy L. Fisher – SVP, Global Head of M1 Advanced TV, Merkle

This presentation discusses two auto campaigns, Ford’s Los Valientes de Hoy and Mazda’s Harmony & Perseverance, that leveraged brand ambassadors and social influencers to drive brand engagement and enrich their relationships with Hispanic consumers.

Ford’s Los Valientes de Hoy:

• Univision created a branded content series exclusively for Ford F-150 that profiles people who overcome personal challenges while contributing to their community. It was hosted by Alan Tacher of Despierta América, the #1 morning show for U.S. Hispanics.
• The series was promoted by Univision and Ford social handles. This resulted in 9.0M+ social impressions.
• The creatives aired on Univision over-performed vs. auto category ads on Univision and English-language TV for ad memorability, brand memorability, message memorability, and likeability.

Mazda’s Harmony & Perseverance:

• Mazda wanted to show the auto brand’s connection to Hiroshima and how Harmony and Preseverance are embedded in Japanese culture.
• Univision created a travel social series with Univision’s travel influencer, Alan Estrada. The short and long form content were shared on Univision’s and Alan’s Facebook and YouTube pages.
• Results to date: +3.3M total social views, +11.9M total social impressions; +113K total fan actions.

Key takeaways:

• There needs to be a lot of communication between publisher and advertiser.
• Be flexible.
• If you are a brand trying to understand and reach out to Spanish-speaking consumers, research shows that Spanish speakers are going out and looking at other places rather than just Hispanic channels on TV.
• Hispanic purchase patterns changed but have now normalized.
• Research has shown that Hispanic consumers need to have longer communication to effectively deliver the message to them, which makes story telling via social work well.
• Developing successful social influencer campaigns heightens the need for brands and ad agencies to partner, because each piece of content must resonate with the consumer.

Presentation:

Video:

 

---

Using Data to Drive Business for NASCAR and Their Partners
Norris Scott – VP Analytics & Insights, NASCAR

In this presentation from NASCAR, fan engagement is discussed as one of the strongest paths to understanding data and the role that their newly developed social engagement center played in evolving their consumer outreach.

Key takeaways:

• The sports industry has evolved from counting and ratings to engagements – click throughs and impressions are at the forefront.
• NASCAR developed a “fan council” that is comprised of 25,000 fans to study their market.
• The “fan council” has a 50% completion rate and conducts 80 projects on an annual basis.
• Fans are all volunteers and are asked to complete different surveys after each event – NASCAR calls the fan council their “secret weapon”.
• In 2013, NASCAR launched the fan media and engagement center. The center: evaluates emerging competition themes; analyses trending topics; records KPIs against benchmarks.
• NASCAR events do not have set breaks – as a result, NASCAR has done a lot of research and found that split-screening works.
• Pay for play – split screen advertising has helped to retain viewership.
• You need proprietary tools and third party in order to have success – they can’t live separately.

Presentation:

Video:

---

Panel Perspectives: Marketing Strategies to Engage Consumers and Drive Revenue
Tara Brannigan – Head of Marketing and Member Services, BOOK by Cadillac Mark Wakefield – Global Co-lead, Automotive & Industrial Practice, AlixPartners Julie Fleischer – VP Marketing, Marketing Solutions, Neustar
Moderator:
Brian Braiker – Editor, AdAge

This panel discussed several topics that showcase how automotive brands are changing how they interact with automotive buyers – from emerging subscription services to new creative approaches.

Key takeaways:

• 2015 was the peak year of auto retail sales but in 2016-17, sales have been down – it has been a slow, downward cycle.
• New services within automotive are estimated to bring $1.5 trillion in revenue to the industry by 2030.
• BOOK by Cadillac is a premier luxury vehicle subscription service – it was developed to offer consumers more flexibility within the auto industry, given changing tastes.
• BOOK is attracting younger consumers, and 85% of those using BOOK are new to the Cadillac brand.
• Measure your drivers: Think about how consumers access transportation differently today, starting with your product. If you are only looking at marketing factors, you are missing key points in your approach.
• Break barriers in your creative: The “traditional” way of advertising in the auto industry is over, do something new to invigorate your potential customers. Do something customers do not typically see in auto advertising.

Presentation:

Video: