The advertisements extolling General Motors’ Chevy Volt electric car on the Planet Green “eco-lifestyle” TV network are a far cry from the fast-paced, 30-second spot normally associated with vehicle pitches.
For a start, they run for two minutes. One sets a gentle, erudite tone with soft piano music and shots of a pianist tickling the ivories. He turns out to be Frank Weber, the Volt’s project director, playing one of his own compositions. At the end of the spot, viewers are invited to “join the conversation” – not at a GM website, but at planetgreen.com.
Such ads, which GM prefers to describe as “short-form videos”, highlight a tectonic shift in the way the struggling carmaker is trying to revive its image among present and future car buyers.
GM’s objective is to “engage in a conversation”, says Betsy Lazar, executive director for advertising and media operations. “The idea is: how do you get from a 30-second opportunity to a deeper engagement?”
The strategy is driven by two emerging realities – one harsh, the other offering boundless opportunities.
GM’s financial troubles – it has racked up losses of $67bn (€52bn, £41bn) since 2005 – are forcing it to slash costs in almost every part of its business. TNS Media Intelligence, which tracks how much companies spend on advertising, estimates that GM has cut its advertising budget by almost $1bn over the past three years.
The company spent $2.1bn last year, making it the US’s fourth-biggest advertiser. Ms Lazar declines to confirm the accuracy of TNS data beyond saying that it greatly underestimates digital media spending.
The new opportunities come from the internet, which has enabled carmakers to target prospective buyers more effectively and at lower cost than through traditional media.
GM estimates that the average prime-time TV network show now delivers only about 3 per cent of its target audience. Cable-channel audiences are even smaller. What is more, many TV viewers skip ads or are distracted by other tasks – not least, surfing the internet.
For the first time in many years, GM has decided not to screen ads on three of TV’s biggest crowd-pullers – the award ceremonies for the Oscars and the Emmys, and the National Football League’s Super Bowl.
“It’s very hard to justify the cost of something like the Academy Awards because the world has changed and we’ve got better insights of how to connect with consumers,” Ms Lazar says. “The more targeted we can get in our efforts, the more effective we’re going to be.”
Enter the internet. GM estimates that more than two-thirds of US car buyers now do part of their research on the web. And these people are younger than the average TV audience, which is a key point as the Detroit carmaker works to improve the image of its brands. Youngsters still not old enough to drive – and unaware of GM’s past mistakes – have become a key target.
According to Ms Lazar, ads placed on any weekday on the homepages of MSN, AOL and Yahoo, the three biggest portals, have a broader reach combined than a Super Bowl TV spot.
Homepages featuring an ad for the Chevrolet Malibu sedan registered 960m hits during a one-day blitz a year ago marking the car’s launch. Some 3.7m internet users not only saw the ad but “engaged” with it by clicking on it, thus accessing more detailed shots of the car and motoring writers’ reviews.
The cost of online ads “is very, very efficient relative to television”, Ms Lazar says. She declines to provide details, but notes that by adding pages and content, websites can expand supply in ways that TV cannot, thus damping bids for space and containing rates.
The internet also offers the ability to track prospective buyers in ways that are not possible with TV and newspapers.
“In the old days, unless it was an old customer coming back, we had no idea when they were in the market,” Ms Lazar says. “Now when they type in Chevrolet, car, crossover, fuel-efficient vehicles or Toyota, we can engage in a conversation.”
Television, newspapers and event marketing have increasingly become a means to drive prospective buyers to the internet. GM’s new Cadillac CTS sedan featured prominently in Damages, a murder-mystery series that aired in the US last year. Viewers could take part in a competition to solve the mystery and win a CTS, but they had to sign up on the Cadillac website.
On the newspaper side, GM sponsors an advertorial supplement in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times, whose readers have deserted Detroit in droves for Toyota, Honda and other Asian carmakers. Vehicle and dealer websites are displayed prominently, often in bold type or colour.
The carmaker gauges the success of its online ad campaigns using software known as a “digital dashboard” that enables it to monitor usage on a real-time basis. The tool, developed by Digitas and Starcom Mediavest, both part of the Publicis advertising group, measures how far users “drill down” into GM websites and those of about 30 portals and online vehicle-pricing services that carry information on GM vehicles.
“A very proactive headline can get someone to click on an ad,” Ms Lazar notes. “But what really matters is whether they are engaged.”
For a start, they run for two minutes. One sets a gentle, erudite tone with soft piano music and shots of a pianist tickling the ivories. He turns out to be Frank Weber, the Volt’s project director, playing one of his own compositions. At the end of the spot, viewers are invited to “join the conversation” – not at a GM website, but at planetgreen.com.
Such ads, which GM prefers to describe as “short-form videos”, highlight a tectonic shift in the way the struggling carmaker is trying to revive its image among present and future car buyers.
GM’s objective is to “engage in a conversation”, says Betsy Lazar, executive director for advertising and media operations. “The idea is: how do you get from a 30-second opportunity to a deeper engagement?”
The strategy is driven by two emerging realities – one harsh, the other offering boundless opportunities.
GM’s financial troubles – it has racked up losses of $67bn (€52bn, £41bn) since 2005 – are forcing it to slash costs in almost every part of its business. TNS Media Intelligence, which tracks how much companies spend on advertising, estimates that GM has cut its advertising budget by almost $1bn over the past three years.
The company spent $2.1bn last year, making it the US’s fourth-biggest advertiser. Ms Lazar declines to confirm the accuracy of TNS data beyond saying that it greatly underestimates digital media spending.
The new opportunities come from the internet, which has enabled carmakers to target prospective buyers more effectively and at lower cost than through traditional media.
GM estimates that the average prime-time TV network show now delivers only about 3 per cent of its target audience. Cable-channel audiences are even smaller. What is more, many TV viewers skip ads or are distracted by other tasks – not least, surfing the internet.
For the first time in many years, GM has decided not to screen ads on three of TV’s biggest crowd-pullers – the award ceremonies for the Oscars and the Emmys, and the National Football League’s Super Bowl.
“It’s very hard to justify the cost of something like the Academy Awards because the world has changed and we’ve got better insights of how to connect with consumers,” Ms Lazar says. “The more targeted we can get in our efforts, the more effective we’re going to be.”
Enter the internet. GM estimates that more than two-thirds of US car buyers now do part of their research on the web. And these people are younger than the average TV audience, which is a key point as the Detroit carmaker works to improve the image of its brands. Youngsters still not old enough to drive – and unaware of GM’s past mistakes – have become a key target.
According to Ms Lazar, ads placed on any weekday on the homepages of MSN, AOL and Yahoo, the three biggest portals, have a broader reach combined than a Super Bowl TV spot.
Homepages featuring an ad for the Chevrolet Malibu sedan registered 960m hits during a one-day blitz a year ago marking the car’s launch. Some 3.7m internet users not only saw the ad but “engaged” with it by clicking on it, thus accessing more detailed shots of the car and motoring writers’ reviews.
The cost of online ads “is very, very efficient relative to television”, Ms Lazar says. She declines to provide details, but notes that by adding pages and content, websites can expand supply in ways that TV cannot, thus damping bids for space and containing rates.
The internet also offers the ability to track prospective buyers in ways that are not possible with TV and newspapers.
“In the old days, unless it was an old customer coming back, we had no idea when they were in the market,” Ms Lazar says. “Now when they type in Chevrolet, car, crossover, fuel-efficient vehicles or Toyota, we can engage in a conversation.”
Television, newspapers and event marketing have increasingly become a means to drive prospective buyers to the internet. GM’s new Cadillac CTS sedan featured prominently in Damages, a murder-mystery series that aired in the US last year. Viewers could take part in a competition to solve the mystery and win a CTS, but they had to sign up on the Cadillac website.
On the newspaper side, GM sponsors an advertorial supplement in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times, whose readers have deserted Detroit in droves for Toyota, Honda and other Asian carmakers. Vehicle and dealer websites are displayed prominently, often in bold type or colour.
The carmaker gauges the success of its online ad campaigns using software known as a “digital dashboard” that enables it to monitor usage on a real-time basis. The tool, developed by Digitas and Starcom Mediavest, both part of the Publicis advertising group, measures how far users “drill down” into GM websites and those of about 30 portals and online vehicle-pricing services that carry information on GM vehicles.
“A very proactive headline can get someone to click on an ad,” Ms Lazar notes. “But what really matters is whether they are engaged.”
