Automakers Beginning to Blink at Television Writers' Strike
December 17, 2007

By Dale Buss

Hyundai Motor America has begun shifting 2008 advertising dollars onto the Internet and away from television, as a result of the continued uncertainty over first-quarter programming stemming from the TV writers’ strike.

Other automakers also are on the verge of deciding whether to cut their dependence on a TV calendar that could become bereft of new episodes of popular dramas and comedies for some time, even if the strike is settled soon.

"We’re already making adjustments right now toward the Internet,” Joel Ewanick, Hyundai’s vice president of marketing, told AutoObserver. “We’re taking some monies out of TV that we had planned there for late spring. It’s not a lot of money, but we’re applying those dollars to the Internet.”

Toyota has given up on the idea of advertising on Fox’s 24 because the network already has indicated that it will be postponing the new season of the show, given that only eight of the 24 planned episodes had been shot before the writers’ strike. The show has been an important one to Toyota’ advertising.

But overall, the company is adjusting largely by reconfiguring its involvement with TV rather than diverting more advertising funds elsewhere. Toyota, for example, has intensified its efforts to do product placement in reality TV shows, including integration of some of its vehicles on NBC’s planned new series, American Gladiators, which premieres the first week of January, according to Gregg Benkendorfer, Toyota’s national media and digital manager.

“We’re also renegotiating to get more of our spots on cable rather than broadcast,” he said. “If you’re convinced you should have been on TV for certain models during that time period, then you look for different TV outlets” that aren’t affected by the writers’ strike –- “and they’re there. You don’t just take all that money and throw it into digital.”

Chrysler is “diligently watching and assessing our options almost on a daily basis,” Christine MacKenzie, executive director of multi-brand marketing and agency relations, said on December 13.  “It’s a little too early yet. We’re all hoping that the strike will end.”

If Chrysler soon would decide to shy away from TV-ad placements in the first quarter, “the Internet would be one of the options” for receiving a bigger share of the company’s advertising dollars, MacKenzie added.

Mercedes-Benz USA has been “just having those discussions” about what to do, said Stephen Cannon, vice president of marketing. “We know the pipeline is starting to dwindle on shows and will go into rerun mode,” he said. “We’re good through January, we think, but we’ll have to evaluate February and March. We have a lot of spot stuff scheduled that is absolutely cancelable.”

But if Mercedes-Benz pulls money from TV, Cannon explained, it won’t be going to the Internet: The brand already has almost doubled its spending plans for Internet advertising for 2008 from this year, he said, “and I’m not ready to put more money into that channel.”

Cannon said that Mercedes-Benz doesn’t want to make a premature decision to slash TV-ad spending because slots would be hard to recover once given away. The heavy slate of first-quarter political advertising on TV, from the U.S. presidential race, will create “a crowded media market. We don’t want to cancel [TV ads] and then have to buy back those spots at a premium.”

For General Motors, the writers’ strike represents only the latest discordant note in a relationship with TV advertising that has been souring for quite some time. The continue walkout has only accelerated GM’s steady flight from TV.

“The strike is a new factor, but if you look at TV ratings even leading up to the strike, you’ll see that broadcast network [viewership] eroded at a double-digit pace last year and was tracking downward already in the fourth quarter -– before the beginning of the strike in November,” said Betsy Lazar, GM’s executive director of advertising and media operations.

Interestingly, Ford appears to be in one of the best positions in the auto industry in regard to the writers’ strike -– whatever happens -– because its TV-advertising emphasis in the first quarter will remain on its annual sponsorship of American Idol, the most successful reality show, and on NFL football for Ford trucks.

“Those are big pieces of our [ad] budget and don’t require writers,” said Ted Cannis, Ford’s director of marketing communications. “Plus our product launches are later in the year, and not in the beginning of the year like some others.”

Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:56 AM under Chrysler , Featured , Ford | Comments (0) | digg this | Seed Newsvine