Omni Automotive Advertising Blog

The All-New Volvo S60

Volvo has launched the “Naughty Volvo” campaign featuring the All-New Volvo S60. The campaign challenges you to be “as naughty as you want to be”.

The campaign will expand through the year. For now, you can find more information at www.naughty.volvocars.us. The interactive website employs several video of the S60 driving through tests like the “Elk Test” and the “Slalom Test”. More tests, such as the “Pedestrian Detection Test” will be coming soon.

Volvo is also backing up the campaign with the release today of the Volvo Cars US Facebook page. Drawing on the use of social networks for advertising is a growing trend in automotive advertising. If you twitter, you can follow the campaign through the VolvoCars_US twitter page.

Hyundai is planning on a big night at this years Academy Awards show. The car manufacturer will air eight 30 second spots, each reportedly at a cost of $2.5 million to $2.8 million, a price similar to the commercials that ran during the Super Bowl. Long-time Hyundai spokesperson Jeff Bridges will not be in the commercials due to strict Academy rules which bar nominees from appearing in in-show creative. Replacing Bridges will be actors Martin Sheen, Richard Dreyfuss, Kim Basinger, David Duchovny, Catherine Keener, Michael Madsen, and Mandy Patinkin. The spots will highlighting the 2011 Sonata and 2010 Genesis models.

Here’s a Honda commercial you won’t see in the states. This comes from Honda Motor Europe Ltd. to help launch the Insight.

It’s official. The Cash for Clunkers program will end this weekend. When the program started last month we here at Omni were tasked with creating some micro sites for some of our clients. As the first site was posted we already knew that the Cash for Clunkers program was going strong. We had no idea of what would happen in the next few weeks. As we finished the final sites, the first announcement that the program was running out of cash was announced. Then the extra $2B was put into the program, supposedly to keep it afloat for the rest of the year. And now it’s almost over, with all of the funds gone in just over a month.

As an advertising agency we try to account for everything. Looking over our statistics reports, here are some of the numbers our Cash for Clunkers micro sites saw.

Client A

Site Launched July 23
Active 28 Days
Unique Visitors – 287
Visits – 330
Page Views – 1,231
Registrations – 21

Client B
Site Launched July 6
Active 46 Days
Unique Visitors – 1,426
Visits – 1805
Page Views – 7,878
Registrations – 336

Client C
Site Launched Aug 5
Active 15 Days
Unique Visitors – 29
Visits – 47
Page Views – 205
Registrations – 5

Client D
Site Launched July 13
Active 39 Days
Unique Visitors – 551
Visits – 787
Page Views – 4,115
Registrations – 57

Client E
Site Launched July 27
Active 25 Days
Unique Visitors – 884
Visits – 1,049
Page Views – 3,599
Registrations – 61

As you can see, some sites had better numbers than others. However, looking at the number of active days, the number of visitors and the number of completed online registrations we can estimate that as many as 23% of visitors to Client B, the longest active site, completed a registration form. Client C, with only 15 active days, had a 10% registration rate.

At this point we do not have statistics to compare how many of these applicants made a purchase under the Cash for Clunkers program. However we can say that the micro sites did have a dramatic impact in funneling customers to our clients dealerships.

Ok, so it seems Payment Insurance is the hottest thing going on right now. Everyone from Hyundai to GM to Ford is offering it. Even the dealers are jumping on the bandwagon.

So how does the Payment Insurance Big 3 stack up?

Chart from Jalopnik.

Now as you can see, Ford offers more payment assistance, larger payments and a bigger maximum payout. But, Hyundai is the manufacturer that truly covers the consumer’s negative equity. But the benefit of covering negative equity is a difficult thing to explain to a consumer.

To be fair to GM, this is only part of their Total Confidence program.

Now let’s look how the manufacturers tried to convey this complicated message in a 30 second ad.

Hyundai Assurance Plus

GM Total Confidence

Ford Advantage Plan

Placed back to back to back the messages look very different. While Hyundai and GM try to relate to the viewer, Ford dives right into their message. Hyundai adopts a plus sign in their ad, GM uses a rally cap and Ford just uses straight figures.

The problem with Ford’s direction is what will the viewer ultimately remember. After a few minutes do you remember the figures from the Ford ad? Do you remember the backwards hat? How about the plus sign?

Hyundai and GM went soft with their sale, Ford took the hard road with theirs. Ultimately time will decide which direction was the best.