Its a known fact that in days of economic turmoil auto companies are the worst hit due to lower off take in demand arising from tighter interest rate regime and lower spending. This decrease in demand last year witnessed many auto majors lowering their ad budgets and along came cap on online marketing budgets.
This year as the economy is turning around many auto companies like Maruti Suzuki, General Motors and others are seen increasing their online Ad spends as reported by afaqs. The major reason for tuning up on internet for finding prospective buyers is due to a various surveys which points out the internet as one of the major deciding factor in customers preferences. The figure of such people logging on to the internet for conducting research has risen from 21 per cent in 2007 to 34 per cent in 2009.
Most of these auto companies look at creating visual impact online thus opting for flash banners and click to play video ads. The flash banners have also seen a increase in size layout as companies prefer bigger sizes to showcase their auto brands. Vdopia has also witnessed a 200-300 percent increase in their ad revenues from such auto majors.
Online spending is not just capped to visual advertising it is also proliferating in terms of social media initiatives on Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Companies are also merging the lines between offline marketing and online social media initiatives by inviting users to test drive their product or join various flagship contests being organized.
Tata Motors created a lot of online buzz when it used internet to promote Nano. It devised a website to let users design their own cars. The online buzz resulted in 5 million hits in a period of 24 hours. Nano was even available for booking on Internet thus facilitating more registrations.
Auto companies may just be looking at attracting online youth audiences at present but online marketing could give them brownie points even for other target audiences. Its time we see a lot of traditional sectors joining the internet bandwagon to market their products.
