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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

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

Click here to view the embedded video.

GM Total Confidence

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ford Advantage Plan

Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

First we posted about our meeting with Conan O’Brien. Now, we’re posting a video about Conan’s partner in crime, Andy Richter. Yeah, we admit it, we miss Conan. Can’t wait for June 1st.

Adfreak.

After posting an over 600 word rambling rant, I’m going to keep this post nice and breezy. The above spot is an ad that is currently running for the South Florida Honda Dealers. The ad plays up both the low down payment and monthly payments currently available on Hondas.

Some food for thought. When advertising low payments, keep in mind that most customers don’t have a lot of money to put down right now. Ads that have low payments but a high down payment will bring in traffic but ultimately make customers angry.

Hard times call for old creative it seems. Chrysler has announced plans to bring back Employee Pricing Plus.

You’ll remember that Ford just ran this event during the holidays. And Chrysler ran a similar campaign in 2006.

Dropping 30% in sales from 2007 to 2008 will make you do some crazy things. We’ll see if this jump starts the rest of The Big 3 manufacturers to run Employee Pricing programs as well.

Click here to view the embedded video.

While other manufacturers are hitting the brakes on their factories, Volvo is hitting the brakes for you.

The all new Volvo XC60 can actually stop itself. That’s right, if you’re driving in the city and you’re about to bump someone stopped at a red light, the Volvo XC60 will stop itself from hitting the car. The system only works for low speed accidents (under 20mph), you’re on your own on the highway. Nevertheless it’s a pretty sweet attribute for a car. This definitely makes the brand image of safety stronger for Volvo.

Tip of the hat to AdFreak for the find.

At Omni Advertising, we’re really proud of the work that our in-house studio does. So I’m excited to show off this new ad created by Justin, one of our in house editors.

The copy is quite simple, but the execution brought the spot to another level.

This spot was created for our client, The O’Brien Autopark in Urbana.