“What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”
French Algerian author/philospher Albert Camus had a way with words — and coined a phrase that still resonates today, half a century after his death.
Jim Farley, group VP-global marketing at Ford Motor Co., echoed that sentiment last week when he told attendees at Advertising Age’s 2010 Digital Conference that the recession forced companies to find innovative ways to reach out to consumers, giving a big boost to digital and social marketing. “If the economy hadn’t dropped the way it did, we would have been on auto pilot and not experimented the way we did.”
The Ford marketing chief said the new paradigm that media owners and clients have to get used to involves spending a lot more money in post-launch with new partners. “Yes, we still need traditional media partners and integration will become more and more important,” Mr. Farley said. “But then post-launch we can’t just go away. We have to allocate [social and digital] resources because these different resources change the content and the dialogue of the product after the launch. It’s much more manageable, and it impacts how we build the product.”
Turning social may have been an unintended consequence of the recession for Ford and other marketers but it was also a sign of the times for other reasons — most especially, as consumers worldwide look to their peers for information about products and services they’re considering. The old ‘Interruption Marketing’ paradigm isn’t dead — it was never that healthy to begin with, but it was the only hammer in our toolbox — but it’s becoming less and less effective.
Digital and Social Media aren’t the new “one size fits all” solution, but they’re certainly turning out to be a useful new tool for marketers.
Posted by: Michael Carney
Inchcape Retail’s UK car buying website has released a detailed survey of how British motorists use the web to purchase their next motor vehicle.Autobytel, which has been selling cars online for six years, surveyed nearly 1,000 drivers who visited its website – both buyers and prospects.
The Inchcape survey revealed that:
- 78% of men and 22% of women now buy their cars online
- 73% said they use the web to read reviews or opinions on the latest model compared with 66% from Autobytel’s research in 2003.
- The biggest increase – from 18% to 2003 to 59% in 2005 – said they went online to research interior and exterior pictures of cars.
“Our survey shows the web complements the physical car buying experience provided by the dealer,” explained Spencer Lock, Inchcape Retail’s managing director, “but British car buyers are also becoming increasingly confident in buying cars online.”
Online selling is a key part of Inchcape Retail’s strategy as their research shows a growing number of motorists want to research as well as purchase their next car on the web.
According to US research, almost 70% of consumers use the Web at some point in their automotive purchases. These sorts of statistics help to explain why the automotive industry – the largest advertiser in the world – is drifting online. Online advertising accounted for only 2.5% of total ad spending by the top 10 auto manufacturers in 2005, but a surge is coming. Projections are that spending by US automotive advertisers, which totalled US$1.44 in 2005, will rise to US$2.67 billion in 2007.
Welcome online, Detroit. Just a little word of caution: don’t surf and drive.
