Shop Talk
Retailers, consumers and prices
Auto show-Super Bowl TV ads don’t score for Mazda
Advertising during the Super Bowl doesn’t score for Mazda.
While the Japanese automaker plans to boost its marketing budget this year as it launches the Mazda 2 small car, running TV ads during the National Football League’s championship game in February won’t happen.
“You’re never going to see us on Super Bowl,” Mazda North American chief Jim O’Sullivan said at the Detroit auto show. “We’re not going to spend that kind of money on that kind of property because, yeah, you get a lot of impressions and stuff out there, but the fact of the matter is, do you really get to the target you really wanted? That’s more of a feel-good ad for a lot of people.”
O’Sullivan said it was a “given” that Mazda’s media budget will be up in the first quarter, as well as for the year, although he didn’t say by how much. He said Mazda, which expects its U.S. sales to possibly rise faster than the overall market this year, will spend more on social media and digital advertising this year as it tries to reach younger buyers for its late summer launch of the new 2 model.
However, O’Sullivan said advertising on the Super Bowl — where Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia, and Germany’s Volkswagen will advertise this year — is more about the creativity of the spots than the product or service being sold.
“The one thing about the Super Bowl too, if you’re going to go and do ads at the Super Bowl, you better make sure you got some very good creative because you’ll get criticized for your ads if you don’t have very strong creative,” he said. “So is it about selling cars or is this an agency’s competition? They’re memorable in some cases, but that’s a very expensive property.”
“I’d rather take those resources and go where our customers are and focus on what our brand is,” O’Sullivan added.
Auto show-Consumer Reports analyst talks Toyota, other issues
Consumer Reports magazine’s senior director for automotive testing, Dave Champion, sat down with correspondents Bernie Woodall and Ben Klayman at the Detroit auto show to discuss the U.S. auto industry, including Toyota’s future, the changing nature of the show, small cars and Chrysler.
About Toyota:
“Toyota’s grown incredibly quickly; not only in the number of vehicles that they sell but also in the number of vehicles that they produce. They have a range of vehicles now that’s extremely wide. What Toyota used to have was a great attention to detail on every single part that went into the car and a real focus, very tightly, on the product. Now, with so many different variants and iterations and models, it was very difficult to keep that same focus and that same attention to detail on all the products.”
“The quality of the materials they’ve been using seems to have dropped off and the overall reliability of some of their cars has also not been the stellar (level) that it was in the past.”
“It comes from the top. Look what Alan Mulally’s done at Ford, very focused, one direction, everybody working in that direction. I think the recent changes at Toyota will bring that back, where they focus less on being the biggest, the best, the most stylish or whatever, going back more to their roots, ‘Let’s build something that people will want’ and that will be reliable and bring customers back year after year after year.” About the Detroit show:
“It’s a much quieter show and much more sensible show. Gone are the phenomenal, thousand-horsepower, biggest in class, best of this, concept vehicles that are just absolutely pie in the sky. This is a much more sensible show, really gearing to what people are going to buy.”
About small cars and gas prices:
Auto show-J.D. Power analyst opines on U.S. market
J.D. Power and Associates analyst Jeff Schuster met with Reuters TV and text reporters at the Detroit auto show to discuss the U.S. auto market, including the changing nature of the show and 2010 demand.
About the subdued nature of this year’s show:
“If you look around this show, the message here really is an industry getting back to business. They’re obviously here to sell cars.”
“We’ve changed as an industry … Everyone has evaluated their position after coming out of this steep recession that we were in. At least for the near-term, excess is out.”
“While there’s optimism, it’s cautious optimism. There’s a lot of risks still ahead in this marketplace and the industry. We’re not out of it yet, but I think there’s definitely a general feel of optimism in the market.”
“While I don’t know that we’ll go back to the breaking glass and the cattle down the street, we’ll probably see something in between. We’ll see a little bit more show as we recover.”
About the 2010 market:
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Resident Shop Talk Expert
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According to me motor shows are bit of a waste of time.As you can see the latest car in your local showroom, or even better on the road.In fact many motor manufacturers now don’t bother with the expense of these shows.
Classic cars shows are good though.See some real cars.