3 car brands spinning 'green' with innovative & relevant campaigns

Thanks to iMedia Connection for this post: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/20863.asp

Eco-friendly campaigns that excel
By David Rossiter

Marketing opportunity can still knock -- even when the economy is taking its lumps. See which automotive companies are spinning "green" into gold with some innovative and relevant campaigns.

The price of fuel continues to climb, hitting record highs along the way. Everyone from airlines to movie studios, banks, bands and, of course, consumers are choosing to go carbon neutral in an effort to reduce their toll on our environment. Everywhere we look someone is touting the benefits of "going green." And nowhere is this more evident than in the automotive industry's marketing campaigns.

Their efforts are spurred by record low U.S. car sales across manufacturers. According to figures from Autodata Corp., July 2008 marked the worst month for sales in 16 years, and although August proved slightly more encouraging, sales were still more than 15 percent lower than the previous year. Research from TNS Media Intelligence, which tracks advertising spending, shows a shift in ad spending among auto manufacturers toward their smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles and away from trucks and SUVs.Is a green-themed car campaign enough to turn things around? Some are betting it is by investing in clever and elaborate online marketing initiatives designed to educate, entertain and ultimately lure consumers back to the dealership.

MINI creates CarFun

When it launched in August, MINI Cooper's CarFun Footprint microsite became an instant viral hit. It had all the trappings of an impactful campaign: an intuitive interactive tool, humor and a clever play on the trendy term "carbon footprint."

At the site, users are asked to select their make, model and color of car to calculate their "Fun Score," based on survey data from consumer research firm Strategic Vision, and "Green Score," which is sourced from the Environmental Protection Agency's Green Vehicle Guide. Together, the scores represent one's CarFun Footprint, and prompt a post-quiz response this like one: "You're driving a nice, comfortable sedan. Nice. Comfortable. And not particularly exciting. You could be driving a 37 mile per gallon MINI Cooper that takes nice and comfortable and adds the excitement of go-cart handling, starting at just $19,200."

Prior to launching its campaign, MINI had already benefited from the halo effect of consumers' concerns about rising gas prices. (Autodata reports sales rose by more than 30 percent this year through July.) Its CarFun Footprint campaign, which includes print and outdoor advertising, further spotlights the brand's climate- (and wallet)-friendly design. It also puts the brand head-to-head with its competitors in an environment where the original small luxury vehicle is bound to come out ahead. Existing MINI drivers are sure to find validation in this playful initiative, while consumers interested in living greener (and having more fun in the process) can't help but ponder a buy.

Traversing our reliance on the pump

This summer, GM launched a collection of ecologically minded ads for its Chevy brand during the 2008 Beijing Olympics to underscore its more fuel-efficient vehicles. Among them were new ads for the company's existing "Gas Pumps Hate Us" series, where gas pumps were seen vandalizing cars in their frustration over not being needed. Also introduced were spots marking the upcoming launch of the Chevy Traverse, an eight-passenger SUV with impressive (relatively speaking) highway fuel economy.

Online, the campaign manifested itself with homepage takeovers and display ads. A new Traverse microsite makes the company's brand objective clear by featuring a background of silhouetted trees, and a section on the vehicle's fuel efficiency that pits the Traverse against its competitors.

Both campaign themes feed off consumers' common aggravation over the high price of fuel and endeavor to address their concerns, but in different ways. "Gas Pumps Hate Us" uses humor by personifying the pumps and creating an adversarial relationship between them and the driver not unlike that which we've all experienced -- albeit it in less tangibly aggressive way. The Traverse ads serve to address the more serious side of the issue with hard data consumers can really sink their teeth into.

Ford helps schools go green

Families have always been one of Ford's primary target audiences, and this fact is reflected in its recent "Educate to Escape" contest. Launched in March of this year, the effort found Ford partnering with ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" to award one U.S. school with an eco-friendly makeover based on essay submissions outlining why each entrant deserved help in going green.

"Ford maintains a commitment to lessen our overall impact on the planet with our products and our manufacturing plants," said a Ford Motor Company spokesperson of the campaign. By linking itself to an altruistic effort focused on sustainability and environmental conservation, the company was able to create a positive brand association that's made even more powerful through its subdued emphasis on its vehicles.

Should the message have been missed, Ford made sure to lead contest microsite visitors to a section of the Ford brand site that further addresses environmental issues with articles on its environmentally sustainable soy foam seats and fuel cell hybrid electric plug-in car. The move was a smart one; as effective as contest sponsorships can be in relaying a brand message to consumers, it never hurts to carry their interest in the campaign through to one's more sales-focused online destination.

You have to hand it to the automakers. In the face of one of the worst sales slumps in recent years, confronted with a drop in market value of domestic brands and a dramatic shift in consumer demand from large, typically inefficient vehicles to more compact models, they've had to get very creative -- and fast.

While it's far easier for these marketers to modify their messaging than change their product mix, it isn't easy to develop green campaigns that truly resonate with their potential customers. The theme is one that's being manipulated by virtually every type of business in every market segment in one way or another. Kudos to these car manufacturers for getting it so right.

Jeremiah Owyang's - Recommended Web Strategy Reading

Thanks Jeremiah

October 18th, 2008 | Category: Social Media

I started my social media career at Hitachi Data Systems (I’ll actually be speaking to Hitachi in Tokyo this coming week) and eventually become the online community manager. One of the keys to being a successful community person is to be a resource (or lethal generosity) to the entire industry you want to serve –rather then just a vendor pitching jockey.

In the spirit of sharing, over the past few weeks in client calls, I’ve referenced these posts several times, one of the challenges of my blog layout is that it’s difficult to find the most visited or commented posts, here’s some I think you’d enjoy.

The Many forms of Web Marketing for 2008 (translated into 5 languages): A large index, be aware of the toolset before you begin crafting a strategy. I’ll be updating this for 09, so please leave a comment, I’ll credit you.

The Irrelevant Corporate Website (translated into 10 languages): “Blasphemy!” A marcom manager told me yesterday.

The Many Forms of Web Monetization: an important post for startups in today’s economic times.

A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media: This is the list you want to stay off of.

List of Social Media Strategists and Community Managers in enterprise corporations: Unlike a wiki, I vet each submission and check their profiles to the best of my ability.

Impacts of Social Media on Customer Reference Programs: If your company harvests positive brand mentions and make case studies and toss the negative ones, they need to read this.

Social Media by Industry: Auto, Finance, and Insurance. Need to find examples for your boss or client? These lists can help.

List of Communities, Virtual Worlds, and Social Networks for Youth, Boomers, Retired, and Beyond: Need to reach a specific demographic, this list is a start.

Applying Social Computing to the Entire Product Life Cycle: If you’re thinking about social media for marketing only, you’ll need to expand further.

How to Successfully Moderate a Conference Panel, A Comprehensive Guide: I’ve been moderating quite a few panels, and have found some patterns that work for me. I still need to self-check to make sure I live up to my benchmark.

How I use Twitter: I often tell people I don’t mind if they unfollow from on Twitter as I’m very high volume, but there is a method to how and why I use the tool.

If these resources were helpful, I’d love to hear your feedback in comments. Recently I conducted a survey to find out what readers wanted to see more of, and it’s case studies, but I’ve found them too laborious to write for a blog post.

I’ll write you from Japan, (I’m traveling 4 out of 5 weeks) I’m going to enjoy a little big of quiet time on the plane to settle my mind, and hopefully write up my findings from last week’s roundtable as well as provide a status on the upcoming wave report on community platforms. Following Japan I land for a night back in SF then depart to Dallas for Forrester’s consumer forum, where I’ll be leading an interactive session with some of the world’s top interactive marketers, if you wanted to schedule time to talk with an analyst, here’s the lineup.

Some thoughts on the 'integrated ad agency vs specalist digital shop' arguement

This question keeps coming up again and again and I don’t think it will ever be definitively answered… or more to the point, I’m doubting the point of asking it.

I’ve worked on both sides of the agency divide (specialist digital shop and integrated ad agency), and have to say that both models are equally capable of delivering involving, integrated and entertaining communications platforms, as they are of churning out streams of non-engaging garbage.

What it comes down to is the people. Just as we talk to our clients about enhancing demographic/media spreadsheet-based views of customers with more human understanding and interaction (via technology), shouldn’t we also realise that the ‘agencographic’ approach is never going to provide the answer?

For me it’s all about finding people who understand the space and can grasp the big picture vision of “why we’re doing this” (they could be agency or client side), and have them lead the work on the overall plan of platforms, channels, inputs, outputs, metrics, etc. Once this is in place it’s just about accessing what capabilities you currently have (current agencies, internal tech, etc), how you get the ones you don’t (specialist shops, outsource, etc) and getting good planning, production and data people to pull the bits together and keep it on track. Who cares if they’re at a specialist shop, an ad agency, or internal?

As the space expands and becomes more human in every possible way, I think to be successful we’re going to have to spend more time on the humans we work with to ensure we’re all acting like the same ‘brand person’.

If I was a client, I wouldn’t ask what ‘sort’ of agency I had (until it came to how my execution/production $ was going to be spent), I’d be asking to see people with understanding and passion for the space who can play really well with anyone else, including me.

Cause Related Marketing Influences Sales

Thanks research brief for these number around how causes effect marketing results

The 2008 Cone/Duke University Behavioral Cause Study, released recently by Cone and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, confirms that cause-related marketing can exponentially increase sales, in one case as much as 74%, resulting in millions of dollars in potential revenue for brands.

182 participants evaluated a new regional magazine and were exposed to either a cause-related or generic corporate advertisement for one of four focus brands. Afterward, they entered a mock convenience store with nearly 150 SKUs and were given real money to purchase a product in each of the four categories.

Results revealed:

74% increase in actual purchase for a shampoo brand when associated with a cause (47% of participants who saw the cause-related message chose the brand while only 27% of those who saw the generic corporate advertisement chose the brand)
28% increase in actual purchase for a toothpaste brand when associated with a cause (64% of participants who saw the cause message chose the target brand vs. 50% who viewed the generic corporate advertisement)
Modest increases in the other two product categories tested (chips and light bulbs) - Qualitative consumer responses showed that the issue, the nonprofit and the inherent nature of products were key factors in making cause-related purchasing decisions, and helped explain why movement in these categories was not significant.


In the second phase of the research, Cone and Duke validated the sales increases for shampoo and toothpaste by replicating the study online among a nationally projectable sample of more than 1,000 adults. The participants spent nearly twice as long reviewing cause-related ads versus the general corporate advertisements.

This resulted in a 19% sales increase (similar to the lab study for the target toothpaste brand.) Although the shampoo brand increased only by a modest 5 percent, sales among its target audience of women increased by nearly 14 percent.

Gavan Fitzsimons, Duke marketing professor and lead researcher on the study, observes tha "... consumers are paying more attention to cause messages, and... are more likely to purchase... "

Additionally, Cone conducted the 2008 Cause Evolution Study, to better identify what drove substantial product sales for only two of the four brands. The following factors appeared to be important when deciding to support a company's cause efforts:

84% want to select their own cause
83% say personal relevance is key
80% believe the specific nonprofit associated with the campaign matters
77% say practical incentives for involvement, such as saving money or time, are important
65% find emotional incentives for involvement, such as it making them feel good or alleviating shopping guilt, important


Alison DaSilva, Cone executive vice president, Knowledge Leadership and Insights, said "The findings... show (that)... consumers want to feel a connection to the issue and the nonprofit while fulfilling their personal needs... "

According to the study, the leading issues that Americans want companies to address in their cause programs are consistent with growing domestic and global needs. The issues include:

Education - 80%
Economic development (i.e.: job creation, income generation, wealth accumulation) - 80%
Health and disease - 79%
Access to clean water - 79%
Environment - 77%
Disaster relief - 77%
Hunger - 77%


For more details from the study, and additional information about Cone, please visit here.

ING café

In the heart of downtown Chicago, ING Bank has a branch where coffee is king and there isn't a teller in sight...

Across the road from the Sofitel Hotel, the giant 'coffee shop' is hard to miss - it's decked out in the distinctive bright orange and blue of ING Bank's corporate colours and has about twice the footprint of a typical Starbucks in the surrounding neighbourhood, which is home to many middle and upper income earners dwelling in a fast-growing collection of high rise condominiums.

Customers buy their barista coffee at a counter like they would at any other coffee shop. It's served in bright orange takeaway cups - and if you're wearing orange on a Friday, it's free.

If you choose to 'drink-in' you can relax at a table with a newspaper or some ING Bank product information, or sit at an internet terminal and surf the web - once you've navigated away from the ING Bank home page of course. Large screen TVs broadcast CNBC news bulletins and sharemarket information inside a moving orange frame which offers some ING Bank news and the going interest rates.

There is ING Bank merchandise on display - ranging from golf balls and mugs, picnic baskets and baseball caps - and even an office shredder to get rid of all those annoying paper bank statements securely. All in orange, of course.

A flip menu board on the tables offers not an array of food choices, but some clever slogans to reinforce ING Bank's mantra. "Change begins in your pocket, Become a Saver" was a stand-out. Others included 'Write a cheque without lifting a pen'.

If you're hungry, you can augment the coffee with food. Our visit was around breakfast time and we selected a pre-mix yogurt and muesli parfait. It came with a slice of bright orange mandarin and a single blueberry on top - even the food comes in corporate colours! You might want to follow the coffee up with a mint - or in this cafe's case an "invest-mint".

And don't despair - if you're short of cash there may not be a teller on call - but there is an ATM in-store. An ING Bank one, of course.

As a branding exercise, ING Bank's Chicago cafe stands out. If the message is layered on a little too thick, the trowel of humour excuses it. It presents a myriad of complementary messages about the bank, its products and its corporate philosophy without any high pressure sales tactics from over-zealous sales people (a stark contrast to those pesky American Express salespeople in airports!).

By Robert Stockdill

LED Dance Floor

Illuminated dance floors are nothing new. In the seventies they where all the rage, the problem was that dancers flared hot pants would cover the floor panels and kill the effect. Now, flares or not, the illuminated dance floor is back, this time in LED form. Using the latest in pressure sensitive LED technology, these panels are designed to interact with club goers moves as well as D.J's sets. Special plug ins can be downloaded into the D.Js computer equipment allowing an entire set to be pre programmed where the music and lights work together. The panels are not restricted to work only on dance floors and can be fitted to walls, bar tops and Lionel Ritchie's favorite place to dance, ceilings.

Equally as popular are the silent disco parties. Originally developed in the Netherlands, the concept involves a DJ, numerous sets of wireless headphones and a huge number of people who are not afraid to look stupid. The concept is very unique and pretty funky, however if you happen to not be wearing a headset, you may think someone spiked your drink as you witness a lot of dancing and no music. The DJs tunes are broadcast on a particular frequency that only the party goers headsets can pick up. The company known as 433fm.com, came up with the concept in 2002 and say the aim is for people "to go off in silence".

coolhunter.com.au

Plans to go

Make plans on the go with Phonevite

Since the debut of its Express service in June, Phonevite has been gaining steam. The free service allows you to send announcements and reminders to a group of people at once from your phone or PC. All that is required is a working phone number. While group messaging isn’t a new idea, Phonevite makes it simple than anything we’ve seen—you don’t even need to register.

Considering that the young and mobile set make plans these days via text (email is so 1999), this is a great idea. Just look at the tweet-up phenomenon. Need to tell friends you snagged a reservation at Momofuku Ko? Can we come? How about remind your coworkers it is 5pm and time to leave the office? Hiring? Seriously, though, people are using it in a variety of ways. Clubs are using it to organize get-togethers and parties, while some school systems use it to notify parents when their children have ditched class, said Techcrunch.

The system actually works very much like eVite, but on mobile. Recipients of your message can RSVP yes, no or maybe by punching in 1, 2 or 3 in their phones. They can even record a response - all of which you can track on the Phonevite website. You can message 25 people for free, or up to 2000 people for $0.05 per call.

We would love to see this service team up with sites such Meetup or Going, or even become a Corporate solution.

Thanks to NGT for this post. Full article found at:
http://www.nextgreatthing.com/wordpress/2008/10/08/make-plans-on-the-go-with-phonevite/