practical cases: automotive

Automotive Business Case

Simon Mc DermottAttentio

When people look for brands information on the Internet,

this is what they find ….


Review sites, forums, blogs

In other words… Social Media

• 82% of auto-buyers visit 3rd party online auto sites before purchasing

70% of automotive consumers trust & seek out the authority, opinions and experiences of other consumers during the purchasing process

1 in 3 auto buyers say that CGM help them make their decision

24% of auto buyers to change their mind about the type of vehicle they select to purchase.

• 71% Social Media highest influence for car purchase above TV ads (17%) and direct mail (48%)

Relevance of Word of Mouth for automotive industry


Monitoring Social Media

The hybrid campaign

• Client objectives: • Create discussion around hybrid and green cars • Influence the level of buzz around these topics

• Method:• Contact influential bloggers in several domains (automotive,

environment, lifestyle, business, architecture and politics) and provide them with exclusive information

• Create high profile discussion forum around a topic• Attentio’s role in the project:

• Identification of influential bloggers• Campaign tracking• Results analysis


Identification of influencers- Key points

• Not focused on automotive but on other domains• Not the most well known (middle influencers) so higher likely hood

of response• Identification via technology and manually


0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

Date

Nu

mb

er

of

art

icle

s

Diesel

Electric car

Hybrid

Hydrogen

Plug-in hybrid

Buzz overview for tracked car topics October &“Geldof campaign” cause peaks in hybrid discussion

2nd November – 9 bloggers from automotive domain

were contacted

10th December – start of Bob Geldof spearheaded

campaign

26th October – 49 bloggers from all domains were

contacted


44%

17%

19%

13%

8%

40%

18%

9%

21%

11%

64%

15%

10%

3%

8%

40%

21%

14%

2%

23%

47%

20%

7%

8%

18%

28%

18%

33%

7%

14%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

BMW Honda Lexus Saab Toyota VW

Plug-in hybrid

Hydrogen

Diesel

Electric car

Hybrid

Car brand share of voice

VW13%

Toyota48%

Honda26%

Lexus8%

Saab5%

Share of voice for car brands and topics

The brand with highest buzz around hybrids was Lexus even though they have 8% online share of voice vs tracked brands


The hybrid campaign results

• Project tracking demonstrates that the information seeding campaign was successful as it met the client objectives in terms of levels of buzz and topics related to buzz

• Some key learnings • Careful targeting of bloggers is key• Bloggers react to exclusive content (we also have experience with

seeding of non exclusive content and NO significant impact)• Automotive events drive significantly levels of buzz and topics of

discussion. Its important to take them into account for timing of seeding campaigns


Monitoring can help the automotive industry enhance

marketing, Consumer Services and PR objectives

By monitoring and measuring new models before, during and after launch, comparing it with competition models

By measuring Word of Mouth around events and promotion By improving quality and speed of traditional market research with real

time consumer inputs and identifying efluentials to talk with By identifying quality and safety issues early, based on driver’s real-life

experience and addressing specific problems between customers and dealers

By pinpointing issues likely to affect reputation and image quickly, identifying sources and proactively addressing potentially damaging rumors


Thank you!Any questions?Lets talk during the breaks