Automotive marketing can sometimes move at a snail’s pace, but it can also feel like it’s moving at a pace that’s hard to catch up with. From video being top of the food chain to creating immersive experiences digitally, are you aware of what’s actually a trend in marketing? We’ve noted down some of the major trends we’ve seen in automotive marketing recently and how you can effectively utilise them in your wider activation and marketing strategies.
1. Video is king
It’s hard to convey how a car drives or feels in a photo alone, so we often turn to video to truly experience this. The rise of short form platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels have supercharged the video revolution, with brands and influencers alike turning to short form vertical video.
Out of 5.4 billion internet users worldwide, 19.26% are monthly active TikTok users (MAU). Couple this with the two billion MAU Instagram has, and YouTube’s 2.5 billion, video is no laughing matter.
While video is nothing new to automotive firms with their history of TV advertising, some of the best automotive campaigns are video based, the transition to short-form vertical has been one to watch.
Take Lotus, a traditional car firm you’d associate with old money and wealth rather than modern and groundbreaking marketing. To get press attention and expose their brand to a new audience, they seemingly gave an employee full control over their TikTok.
Affectionately referred to as “admin”, Kai-To Li, who ran the TikTok at the time, generated huge success and visibility for the brand. Through his s**tposting approach, Kai-To was able to accumulate millions of views per video and created a community of new followers of people who loved him.
While you don’t have to go to the extremes Lotus did, being experimental with video within the confines of your brand can help you to discover new audiences and try different areas.
2. Multi-channel touchpoints
Cars, insurance, finance for cars and much more aren’t just being purchased in dealerships and on the brand site. People are shopping around and using third party platforms to look at the best result for them. This multi-channel approach means that you need to be aware and utilising multiple channels for sales and reviews to ensure maximum exposure.
For automotive firms, your channel marketing strategy needs to be integrated and data-driven to ensure you’re putting money where there’s return to be made. Consider what third party sites are best for you, and how you can make the most of them. There’s popular sites like Auto Trader for second hand car sales, as well as challenger brands like Honk Honk. For garages, you’ve got platforms like BookMyGarage and FixMyCar. Choosing the platforms that work for you and get you in front of potential customers is a decision to take seriously.
With this, you’ll also need to make sure you’re getting the right data to leverage budget. Are your third parties providing you with clear data on how your listings are performing, or what the interest is for your brand? This data should be taken and used internally for owned channels as well as future projects.
3. Influencers
Love them or hate them, we are in an influencer economy. People turn to trusted voices for purchase decisions and if you can work with the right influencers, it can be a game changer for your business. From changing brand sentiment to unlocking new audiences, there’s a huge range of possibilities that influencers bring.
Influencers also bring an additional touchpoint for your purchase journey, especially on high value items such as a new car.
Supercar Blondie is probably one of the most well-known influencers across multiple platforms, from YouTube to TikTok and everything in between.
She shares both the aspirational stuff, like supercars and prototypes to the widely achievable daily drivers. This variety of content plus the multitude of platforms she’s able to work across demonstrate the power and reach of a good influencer.
4. Online first
Car buyers are more likely than ever to shop online for a car and research from EY shows that 87% of people will use online tools for information gathering before purchasing cars. That’s not to say dealerships aren’t still important, but they’re now for the final purchasing decision over the initial investigation.
Cars aren’t the only thing that need good digital experiences, in any automotive segment good digital experiences are key. Take paint protection film (PPF). If you’ve just bought a brand new car and want to keep it in the same pristine condition, then PPF is what you want. A good digital experience for a paint protection film would be to show the available options, like this:
You can clearly see how a simple photo makes a huge difference, and elevates the customer journey, while demonstrating value and package differences.
5. UGC (User Generated Content)
UGC, which stands for user generated content, is a form of marketing and advertising that’s rapidly grown in popularity over the past few years. UGC is essentially free content, as it’s been created by people who are already using your products or brand. It can work for everything from low-cost items such as car fragrance to cars themselves. For example, a car manufacturer could repost a TikTok or Instagram Reel from someone who’s made a car edit of one of their cars. This is a simple way of utilising UGC.
It constitutes:
- Reviews
- Imagery and videos showing off the product
- Social media posts, including things like Instagram stories
- Paid-for content created by a content creator
- Long form reviews such as blogs or website content
Similarly, another simple way to utilise UGC is to have a review or testimonial slider on your website. By pulling in actual quotes from customers you can boost your trust factors and show off some of your best work. This goes back to Google adding in Experience to its EEAT acronym, showing how important lived experience is of products and services.
6. Boost diversity in messaging
Diversity in marketing can often be, and potentially incorrectly, seen as a tokenistic attempt to get more people to buy. In reality, diversity in automotive marketing needs to be more than just putting a stereotypically attractive woman driving the car while her male partner/friend sits in the passenger seat.
In an op-ed in Marketing Week, they discussed how as the advertising of cars is overtly hyper masculine, it targets a minute subsect of society. They also covered how the lack of senior level female execs in the car industry had prevented serious growth in this space. In fact, research from 2018 shows that car adverts are so hyper masculine, even men are turned off by it.
Similarly, recent research from System1 showed that “gay ads make companies net profit.” Put simply, ads that feature LGBTQIA+ people and their stories make more profit across all consumers than those that don’t. Diversity and inclusivity in marketing doesn’t just increase profits with the communities shown, they increase net profit. For automotive firms, there’s no harm in boosting diversity to see the net gains.
7. Feature rich online experiences
With high ticket items such as cars, people want to feel like each step of the way is demonstrative of the money they’re paying for your service. Whether it’s a new car, a respray or a regular purchase like a detailing service, being able to demonstrate value is key.
Take a car configurator. These are now becoming more standard on car manufacturers websites, allowing potential customers to look at design and engine options before they purchase, and providing education on the cost and impact options make on the overall purchase price.
As the purchase journey for high ticket items such as cars begins at home, these feature rich experiences can marry up with the experience in a car showroom and into a test drive, before hopefully a purchase!
Stay ahead of the trends with MRS Digital
We’re automotive geeks and work with brands across the automotive world to get them results that they had previously only dreamt of. Not only that, but we’ve won numerous SEO and PPC awards for our work with automotive clients. Get in touch with us today to see the magic we can perform.
