If automotive marketers are to make it in a slowing market, exploring new ways of reaching and engaging the over-stimulated consumer is becoming increasingly essential. Erik Almadrones further explains what brands can do to optimize their multi-billion dollar spends. We’re also taking a look at why more luxury brands are exploring experiential marketing, and 3 key trends driving in-person marketing.
The Live Marketing roundup is a weekly roundup of the latest insights in live marketing, which includes face-to-face efforts such as experiential, event and other brand marketing.
With the market on the decline and inventories on the rise, automakers need to search for new ways to cut through the noise. “Yet those strategies—if executed in the usual way—may not deliver more than the usual results, causing a negative impact on residual values and brand equity,” says Erik Almadrones, Managing Director, Deloitte Digital Consulting.
Marketers in the automotive space need to use digital channels and tools more efficiently to optimize spend and target buyers who are closer to purchasing. The key questions automotive marketers need to answer:
Three key steps automotive marketers and executives can take to maximize the efficiency of their efforts:
Tear down existing silos
Fixed (traditional advertising, marketing and digital) and variable marketing spend (purchase incentives such as case rebates, lease offers and low-cost loans) have traditionally been managed separately. Sales spearheads incentives while marketing manages advertising and brand marketing.
Breaking down these age-old silos is a great start to running more effective campaigns. Start with a set of cross-function metrics that accurately measure both incentives. These singular KPIs help drive collaboration at the top and enable goal setting that touches both departments.
Develop better digital tools to measure marketing effectiveness
Once collaboration improves, automakers are tasked with the question of attribution. Is a lift in sales the result of a recent marketing initiative or tier 2 media campaign?
Although many automakers are starting to see the importance of measurement, the capabilities and toolsets are still in the early stages.
Establish innovative marketing programs that are data-driven and analytically inspired.
Software and technology present a robust opportunity for automakers to measure, attribute and optimize their digital marketing and ad spend.
One example Almadrones points out is to give brand marketers advanced analytics and social media monitoring tools so they can optimize spend in specific geographic areas. By leveraging personalization, automakers can “proactively manage inventory surpluses before they occur, greatly reducing the need for costly sales incentives to move aging inventory off the lot.”
Another example is to use consumer insights to deliver the right messaging at the right time to deliver a superior consumer experience, ultimately influencing preferences and affecting decision-making.
A shifting consumer has caused luxury brands to move from storefronts to digital, and now, the consumer is demanding yet again another shift. An element that’s always been missing from the digital experience is premium, white-glove service. Brands such as Louis XIII are filling this gap with experiential marketing.
Louis XIII knows that luxury consumers are hungry to put their money into meaningful brands.
The premium cognac producer recorded a song with Pharrell Williams specifically for their new campaign, “100 Years: The Song We’ll Only Hear If We Care.” The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness about the damaging effects of climate change, while shedding light on the 100-year process of making a bottle of cognac.
Louis XIII Cognac Global Executive Director Ludovic du Plessi said of the project, which he championed: “The mastery of time and the volatility of nature are two of the driving forces behind the creation of LOUIS XIII, so climate change is an issue of great importance for the brand – not to mention the world at large.”
Robin Lickliter, Chief Experience Officer at brand experience agency Sparks, said luxury verticals and markets are saturated; activations help “differentiate brands and provide ways to reach new targets, like the experience-seeking Millennial.”
Trends expert Thomas Egli presents three trends for in-person marketing, based on the latest Live Marketing Trend report from marketing consulting agency Reflection Marketing:
Smart Data
Smart data is at the center of the consumer experience. The goal, Egli says, is to use big data to extract relevant insights and apply those to tailored communication and offers. The personal information market in the USA is worth more than 150 billion -- that should give you an idea of how powerful personal data can be.
Content
Events without relevant content might as well not happen at all. Attention is quickly shifting to digital accompaniments. Egli predicts content is going to account for 25-55% of the value of events, sponsorships and exhibitions.
Virtual and augmented reality
In the next few years, VR and AR will move from the early adopter phase to the mainstream. Egli says there’s a great amount of untapped potential, and the goal of the next few years will be to integrate this potential into standardized experience elements and “put it to commercial use.”