Dodge Journey Ads a Hit, But Ford’s Drive One Has Mixed Impact

Dodge Journey Ads a Hit, But Ford’s Drive One Has Mixed Impact

By Dale Buss

Chrysler’s advertising campaign for its new Dodge Journey crossover has greatly boosted initial online interest in the vehicle, according to an analysis by Edmunds.com. But the new omnibus marketing effort launched by Ford recently, Drive One, isn’t packing nearly the same punch.

Those are the conclusions of research by David Tompkins, executive director of business solutions for Edmunds.com, based in Santa Monica, Calif., using consumer visits to the New Vehicle Detail Pages (NVDPs) of the site in April, in the immediate wake of the launches of the two advertising campaigns.

Promising Journey

“Journey [advertising] is a hit,” Tompkins said. “We’re seeing their traffic up 80 percent after the first week and up nearly 90 percent [from the same base] during the second week” on Edmunds.com’s NVDPs. He noted that online response to the Journey campaign stems from “a combination of their ads online offline. But it’s a successful start.”

Deborah Meyer, Chrysler’s chief marketing officer, said that the “memorability and likeability” of Journey TV ads “has been really strong,” according to the company’s internal research. “And brand recall is ramping up quickly,” she added, “which is important since Journey is a brand new name.”

Meyer said that Journey’s various advertising streams “have raised awareness for Journey by 32 percentage points after just the first week.”

Tompkins believes that some of the specifics of the Journey ads “resonate” with consumers, including Chrysler’s orientation in the spots toward highlighting the vehicle’s floor plan and certain flexible features. “Also, the crossover segment is a pretty hot one right now.”

Broader Target

But Tompkins said that one of the disadvantages for the Ford Drive One campaign initially is that “it’s a broad campaign across the whole brand, so it’s harder to be specific.”

Edmunds.com NVDP visits for Ford Focus and Fusion models each have increased by about 10 percent to 15 percent in opening weeks of the ubiquitous Drive One campaign, Tompkins said. But consideration for other Ford vehicles, as measured by NVDP visits, was down for the first two weeks. The increased interest in Focus and Fusion persisted despite falling overall interest in the brand.

“In the current environment, people are very focused on things like miles per gallon,” Tompkins explained. Specifically, Ford’s promotion of the electronics-networking system, Sync by Microsoft, in its Focus ads is helping that vehicle as well.

“It’s an uncertain economic time, so the fluffy ‘isn’t this a wonderful brand?’ type of advertising isn’t doing as well,” he said. “People want to know they’re going to save money on gas, that vehicles are affordable. They’re very practical when the money is tight.”

Tompkins noted that the response to the Ford campaign “has to be considered disappointing” in part because the NVDP measure isn’t very demanding of consumers. “We’re just talking about people seeing a Ford commercial and looking [at an NVDP] out of curiosity,” he explained. “We’re not requiring them to go out and buy a Ford car.”

Nevertheless, Ford marketing executives have said that they were pleased with initial   response to the Drive One campaign, which features real Ford employees and customers in touting the company’s quality, safety, technological capabilities, and “green” chops.

“It’s a little early to declare Drive One a success,” admitted John Felice, general marketing manager for the Ford brand, to AutoObserver. “But the dealer feedback has been very positive, and the advertising has been well received so far.”

In fact, according to a CNBC web survey of 600 respondents conducted after the first Drive One commercial ran, 45 percent said they already liked Ford. Another 20 percent said the commercial didn’t change their minds about Ford. But another 20 percent said that the ad did change their minds – and 15 percent said that the campaign might.

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