Automakers Hope Oscars Ads Provide An Encore

Automakers Hope Oscars Ads Provide An Encore

By Michelle Krebs February 23, 2008

By Dale Buss

At least three automakers should be real happy with the market-moving effectiveness of their Super Bowl advertisements from three weeks ago. And at least two of them — General Motors and Audi — are banking on a repeat of that performance from their marketing investments in Sunday’s Oscars telecast.

Ads for the GMC Yukon Hybrid and Audi R8 led to the biggest lifts in consumer consideration on Super Bowl Sunday and a week afterward, based on visits to the new-vehicle detail pages for the carmakers on Edmunds.com, according to new proprietary research by Edmunds.com.

Measured the same way, consideration also rose strongly for the Toyota Corolla in the wake of its ad during the Fox Network broadcast February 3. And Hyundai got a big lift in visits to its home page after its ads for Genesis, a new near-luxury sedan the company hasn’t yet introduced.

In part encouraged by this track record, both GM and Audi are banking heavily on advertisements during the 80th Academy Awards telecast on ABC. For the 12th consecutive year GM is serving as the exclusive national automotive sponsor. And Audi will debut advertisements for its new A5 coupe in a handful of regional markets while also reprising its well-received “Godfather” ad for the R8 that ran during the Super Bowl.

“The audience for the Oscars is the kind of high-level audience we want, so it’s a great opportunity for us,” said Christian Bokich, an Audi spokesman. The Super Bowl success of the R8 ad, he said, gives Audi confidence the spot will score again with Oscars viewers.

GM spokeswoman Ryndee Carney added, “The Academy Awards tend to draw a high number of women viewers, and the audience is slightly more upscale” than for much of television. “It’s a good audience for getting your message out front.”

Last year’s Oscars broadcast garnered about 41 million American viewers. The Super Bowl earlier this month brought in more than 90 million U.S. viewers. Marketers will spend an estimated $1.6 million for each 30 seconds of commercial time during the Oscars, compared with about $2.7 million for a Super Bowl half-minute.

One reason both events are so pricey is marketers are purchasing a high likelihood their ads won’t simply be recorded and passed over. “Like the Super Bowl,” Carney added, the Oscars “are a premier media property, and they tend to be events that people watch live versus recording them.”

Here’s a look at individual automakers’ takeaways from their Super Bowl advertising experiences and their Academy Awards strategies:

General Motors
The Yukon Hybrid ad first aired during the Super Bowl — titled “Why Push?” and based on an animated version of the myth of Sisyphus — led to a whopping 390 percent increase in consideration of the vehicle that Sunday, compared with the previous four Sundays, based on Edmunds.com’s analysis of views of Web pages that provide new-vehicle details such as pricing, photos and features. Even for the full week after the Super Bowl, the vehicle’s consideration numbers were up 80 percent measured by New Vehicle Detail Page (NVDP) views, compared with those on the four Sundays before the Super Bowl.

“These are pages where visitors must navigate to look at the page by going through the home page, and the model page,” said Dr. David Tompkins, executive director of business solutions for Edmunds.com. “These are not things that consumers do accidentally.”

GM marketers also will be encouraged by how well Cadillac’s sponsorship of the post–Super Bowl TV show and of the game’s Most Valuable Player award translated into viewer interest in Escalade, a hybrid version of which the brand awarded to the MVP, New York Giants Quarterback Eli Manning. Escalade’s NVDPs jumped by 95 percent Super Bowl Sunday and by 11 percent for the full week following Super Bowl Sunday.

But although GM actually reduced its in-game advertisements on Super Bowl Sunday to just the Yukon Hybrid spot — compared with three spots corporate-wide during the game a year earlier — the automaker has invested in tonight’s Oscars just as robustly as in years past. Though GM marketers all along counted on the television writers’ strike to end before it would disturb Sunday’s broadcast of the Academy Awards, Carney admits they’re relieved at the walkout’s end.

Three GM brands, GMC, Cadillac and Saturn, will advertise during the telecast. Some will be repeats of Super Bowl ads, and none of the spots will be brand-new.

What is new is the intensity of resources GM is devoting to an Oscars marketing program that will be only a sidelight to TV viewers — but should create an interesting buzz among awards participants and attendees. GM is making available a fleet of 75 of its eco-friendliest vehicles to drop presenters and performers off at the awards show, and for other events related to it. The models  include the Yukon Hybrid, the FlexFuel E85 Yukon, and the zero-emissions Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell.

GM began offering its green rides to the famous red carpet last year, and takers included actors Jennifer Hudson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Ferrell and Cate Blanchett. “We’re using a much bigger fleet this year,” Carney noted, “because we’ve got more of the products that deliver” on green criteria.

Audi
Sunday will mark a debut for ads for the new A5 coupe, which is just working its way into dealerships nationwide, Bokich told AutoObserver. The spots will air in New York, Los Angeles and Miami markets as local media buys.

The spot for the new 2008 A5 depicts a schoolkid in an elite academy who is getting a lesson in the conformity that will be expected of him when he graduates, Bokich said, including the presumption he will purchase a Mercedes-Benz, a BMW or a Lexus. Suddenly a shiny, dark-colored A5 coupe pulls up outside the classroom and roars — and the kid begins getting other ideas.

The sensibility — a new idea in luxury versus the “old school” — is similar to that displayed by the R8 ad during the Super Bowl. That spot generated a 60 percent increase in NVDP views on Super Bowl Sunday, Edmunds.com’s analysis shows, and a 33 percent increase for the full week following.

“All indications point to a very successful impact” by the ad, Bokich said. “The ‘Godfather’ message resonated with the target market, because those with the means to buy the R8 are well aware of what the movie entailed. And for everyone else, it was a great representation of the product,” including R8’s “sinister aspects.”

Hyundai
Two national ads for Hyundai’s new near-luxury 2009 Genesis sedan ran during the Super Bowl telecast, part of the brand’s effort to create a new, upscale image around its vehicles. And though some wondered whether the commercials could be effective, given the vehicle wasn’t yet available — and that the spots were relatively tame by Super Bowl standards — Hyundai executives have pronounced themselves pleased with the outcome.

One reason: Forty-three percent of respondents in a post-game survey had improved their opinion of the Hyundai brand, the highest for any automotive advertiser, according to the Nielsen Online MegaPanel Survey. In addition, Hyundai garnered a 45 percent increase in net brand improvement, the highest figure for any Super Bowl advertiser, in ComScore’s post-game survey.

Edmunds.com’s research showed although Hyundai didn’t yet have a typical platform of NVDPs for Genesis, there was an increase in traffic to the Hyundai make page.

“Fifteen million people have a different opinion of Hyundai than before,” Joel Ewanick, vice president of marketing for Hyundai of America, told AutoObserver. “We played it very straight. Our ads stood out by not being funny, and we’ve started a debate over whether Hyundai can build a car at this level. That’s the debate I was trying to force.”

Hyundai isn’t doing any network advertising connected to the Oscars.

Toyota
Toyota is digesting a mixed bag of consumer responses to its Super Bowl ads.

There was practically no increase in NVDP views on Super Bowl Sunday in the wake of Toyota’s ad for its Sequoia SUV. But the Super Bowl spot featuring the Corolla and a cranky mother badger drove 47 percent more NVDPs on Super Bowl Sunday than the average of the four previous Sundays, according to Edmunds.com’s analysis, and still boosted NVDPs by 40 percent over the course of the following week.

But although this post-week consideration lift was disproportionately high compared with the pattern for the other automakers, Toyota’s make page didn’t see the increased traffic the other make pages of successful ads saw.

Edmunds.com concluded this departure “may indicate the impact of other marketing activities” besides the Super Bowl ads. It’s also possible the numbers in part reflect relatively weak consumer enthusiasm for the design of the new 2009 Corolla, as indicated by Edmunds.com visitors. “People aren’t thrilled with it, from what we can tell so far,” said Jessica Caldwell, an analyst for Edmunds.com.

Other Automakers
Ford’s first-quarter spot featuring its F-150 truck generated a 38 percent increase in NVDPs on Super Bowl Sunday, but no increase at all during the following week. Ford vehicles and brands also got attention in a Microsoft spot for the Sync in-vehicle communications systems, available only on some Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles.

“There were no measurable lifts in traffic to the Ford, Lincoln and Mercury pages following the Sync ad, but shoppers may have researched (Sync) through other channels,” Tompkins said.

Ford executives weren’t available to discuss the results.

Neither were Chrysler executives available. But the automaker did plan to air some advertisements from its New Day Celebration campaign in local-market buys during the Academy Awards telecast.

“Our intent is to be very strategic with media and online initiatives by being where high volumes of people will go prior to, during or after major events to create a dialogue” — including the Oscars, Chrysler CMO Deborah Meyer said in a company statement a few weeks ago.

Michelle Krebs:  is Editor-in-Chief of AutoObserver.com. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.