Omni Automotive Advertising Blog

There’s been a lot of gloom and doom in the news lately as far as the automotive industry goes. (Like this article, this one, or this one.. just to list a few) But has anyone noticed how fast gas has fallen recently? It’s like I just blinked and all the sudden it’s $2.05 a gallon. (Saw that price this morning on my way to work and almost didn’t believe it)

Remember when it felt like this?

So, what now? Some are saying it’s time to instate a gas tax, to keep demand low and prices from climbing again, as well as collect money for much-needed government projects. Others argue, claiming that a gas tax would be just another blow to the already struggling poor and middle class.

Me? I’ll keep driving the same amount, and I will thoroughly enjoy every stop at the gas station…. if it means only spending 20 bucks.

But I do wonder… with all the effort auto companies have been expending lately to promote their “green” factor (mainly high MPG), will this change anything?

The Big 3 needs a bailout. The COO for Best Buy has declared that this is “the most diifficult (economic) climate” he’s ever seen.

Both Automotive and electronic retailers have lost their “want” buyers.  In these times, consumers are cutting back, only buying what they need*. So unless it’s broke, no one is buying.

However, the Automotive industry does have a built in advantage. Leases. When a lease is over, people need to get a new car.

What are you doing to keep the customers that have already leased from you? Remember it is easier to keep a customer than it is to get a new customer.

Here’s how you keep customers. Don’t nickle and dime them on service and parts. Then, when the lease is up, give the customer a real value for keeping his or her business with you.

* It can be argued that no one really needs a car or a TV to live. But in the majority of consumers’ minds these are items that they need.

In the old days, advertising relied on the push method of motivating consumers. Basically, you buy enough media and you can push your product on the consumer. This was especially easy since television, the biggest medium,  only carried 3 channels.

Creatively, you could get away with a bland ad as long as it had a catchy tagline. A tagline that the consumer would remember after the second viewing and would be cemented into their minds after the 75th.

But thanks to the Long Tail, advertising does not have the luxury of pushing products onto the masses. There are simply too many products and too many mediums to saturate the market with your message. You cannot push your product onto people. Toyota is finding out about this fact of life.

Advertising needs to pull instead of push the consumer. Pull advertising engages and entertains the consumer rather than lectures at the consumer. Pull advertising is sticky, it’s viral and it’s all those other Web 2.0 buzzwords you hear.

But here are the big differences. Push advertising puts the product before the consumer. Pull puts the consumer before the product. Push goes to the consumer. Pull lets the consumer, with a little help and smart positioning, come to the ad. Push targets everyone the same way. Pull targets different people in different ways. Push is about frequency. Pull is about creativity. Push is what the client wants to say. Pull is what the consumers want to hear.

A message that the consumer wants to hear is far more effective than a message the client wants the consumer to hear.

What can it possibly mean that my just-turned 2 year old sings the anthem of Toyota’s most recent advert, unprompted?

Two. Just-turned.

Yes, I write car ads, but, no, I don’t subject my family to multiple and thorough scrutinies of them each time one airs. In fact, in our home, we 21^st-centuriers have taken the liberty of Tivo many a primetime: We frequently fast forward right through those two-‘n-twos. (Hello? Ever heard of the pulse-pounding, pre-commercial break cliffhangers of America’s Next Top Model? [Yes, my hubby is secure enough in his manhood to at least multi-media-task through a season of said show with me; and we fast-forward to find out who is still in the running towards becoming America's next top model together, thank you very much!].)

Although my tender tyke’s channel of choice is Noggin – a land totally Toyotaless – somehow this crafty ad has circumvented all obstacles en route to my boy’s eyes and ears and stamped its music track on his brain.

Forget about its unrelenting banner ads, its neato graphics and even its subliminal message of financial hope. This campaign did just what it should have to heave its hook on the tips of tongues everywhere, or, as we say in Ad Land, it did what it should have to be memorable, memorable, memorable: It found itself a catchy little jingle. Don’t believe me? Point to a zero and ask a person who has just entered toddlerhood what it is.

You might just hear what I do when I ask: Saaaaaaved byyyy zeeeerooooo… Savedbyzerooo! Savedbyzerooo!

Lists are important. They remind us of the stuff we too often forget. Lists help us remember to buy eggs at the grocery store or to pick up the dry cleaning on Thursday.

Unfortunately in this multitasking do it yesterday world, we need lists to aid our memory. Our brains are not wired to remember so much information. Lists are boring, yet essential in our every day lives.

Yet, marketers are now using lists as a marketing tactic. Instead of focusing in on a specific quality of a product or service that can make an emotional appeal to a consumer, marketers would rather rattle off a list of features in the hopes that one feature will strike a consumer to purchase. Throw enough spaghetti against the wall and some of it is sure to stick.

The thought is thus: Why choose one feature on this product when we can advertise eight? Surely more is better.

It’s not. More does not connect. More is not memorable. More equals more noise and less focus.

Is this the strategy you want for your product or service?

Imagine if your advertising was a quarterback? which QB would you rather have? The QB who throws the ball down field in the general vicinity of a wide receiver or the QB who uses pinpoint accuracy to find his receiver.

Sure by zeroing in on a specific target, a QB will throw an interception and a marketer will make a mistake and pick the wrong attribute to motivate consumers. But fear should not guide your decision.

In these tough times, more and more marketers are opting for fear instead of innovation. By basing your decisions on fear, everything becomes bland, boring and unremarkable. Fear makes you choose the easy and safe decision.

Right now, nothing is easier than a list. Lists are the tools of an unsure and indecisive marketer. Is that really what you want? Is that what your client wants?