Automotive Multi Channel Marketing 2014 – free study for the automotive community. Intoduction.

Automotive Multi Channel Marketing 2014 (V. Liedtke)

Automotive Multi Channel Marketing 2014 (V. Liedtke)

What is the current quality level in multi channel marketing of single brands and in the automotive market in general? That will we object of my study “Automotive Multi Channel Marketing 2014”. Within the next month, I will publish this study on Blogomotive step by step. It will be free of charge for you, the automotive marketing community.

Candidates in the study will be: Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, DaciaFord, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Opel, Porsche, Toyota and Volkswagen. If you have proposals to expand the list, please let me know. 

Two topics are in focus of digital automotive marketing these days: the modern car configurator and the challenges of multi channel marketing. With the birth of smartphones and tablets, complexity and workload in automotive marketing grew by a large extend. Desktop-only-communication became the communication of the Big Three: Desktop, tablet and smartphone. OEMs like Mercedes-Benz even consider the InCar portal as another, forth channel. But I leave that out in this study.

Making the best possible brand communication over the Big Three is a new and ambiguous challenge for online marketing departments from A like Audi to Z like Zonda. Which brand does the best job here and what is the overall quality standard in automotive marketing? Finding answers to those two questions is the objective of the study “Automotive Multi Channel Marketing 2014”. Here is a profile of the study:

1. Object of Study
Eleven brands will be featured in the study. The list is not written in stone. If you have proposals to expand the list, please let me know.

  1. Audi
  2. BMW
  3. Chevrolet
  4. Dacia
  5. Ford
  6. Hyundai
  7. Mercedes-Benz (I was responsible for Mobile Marketing as interims manager from 2010 – 2012)
  8. Opel
  9. Porsche
  10. Toyota
  11. Volkswagen

Reference for the study is the German brand portal (i.e. for Audi its www.audi.de) for the Big Three desktop, tablet and smartphone.

Hyundai.de Assessment - only for demonstration purposes (Volker Liedtke)

Hyundai.de Assessment – only for demonstration purposes (Volker Liedtke)

As test devices I use:

  • Desktop: Safari Version 7.0.6 on MacBook Pro
  • Tablet: Safari (current version) on iPad 3
  • Smartphone: Safari (current version) on iPhone 5

Point of time of the analysis per channel is documented by time stamp on the chart. Please note, that I have excluded mobile apps from this analysis, except when they complementing portal communication. I do not claim, that I took the whole app market into consideration. If you have a proposal to include an app into the study, please drop me a note.

2. Method of Study
The study will be conducted into three main steps:

  1. Analysis of OEM’s activities per channel
  2. Assessment of OEM’s overall strategy
  3. Definitions of best practices per channel and per overall strateg

    Method of Study (Volker Liedtke)

    Method of Study (Volker Liedtke)

3. Criteria for OEM assessments

I defined four main criteria for the assessment of each brand in descending priority:
Overall Concept
Existence and quality of a consistant roof concept that supports the brand over all 3 channels in design, content and applications.
Channel Dedication
The subjective impression, if there is a distinct and truly dedicated communication concept per channel in terms of design, IA, usability and applications. Considering, that each channel has it’s own communication potential (technology and user experience) and expectations from the target group.
Quality
Overall impression of quality in design, usability and implementation.
Car Configurator
Pure existence of a car configurator. Feature level of car configurator: full feature configurator or soft configurator (with limited features). Dedicated CC concept and implementation per channel.

Criteria for OEM Assessments (Volker Liedtke)

Criteria for OEM Assessments (Volker Liedtke)

4. Results
The results will be clustered by aggregation level. This will be the final outcome of the study:
Highlights
Possible highlights of brands in terms of design, content, applications, interaction or usability.
Assessment  per Brand
Overall  assessment with the defined criteria.
Summery Matrix 
In a matrix I will summarize the assessment of each brand and each criteria.
Level of Automotive Multi Channel Communication
An aggregation of the result per brand will be the assessment of the quality and status of Automotive Multi Channel in general.
Brand Ranking
And finally we can take a look at the OEM ranking in multi channel marketing.

5. This one is for you
The study will we free of charge for you to read, republish and use in your daily work – if you happened to work in automotive marketing. I will publish an additional brand every 2 to 3 weeks. The growing status of the study will be provided to you as downloads in PDF and open PowerPoint format. So it is as easy as possible to use it.
If you decide to republish it, or use the study or parts of it for your work, I kindly ask you to leave the name tag in the charts and state me as the source – that’s it. Thank you.

Version from 18.08.2014
Download PDF
Download PPT

Volker Liedtke

Über Volker Liedtke

Volker Liedtke ist Interims-Manager, Berater für Digital Marketing und zertifizierter Scrum Master. Bei Porsche beschleunigte er die Digitale Transformation der Unternehmenskommunikation. Bei Daimler verantwortete er den Aufbau des Mobile Marketing. Bei Audi relaunchte er das globale Markenportal www.audi.de. Bei GM/Opel entwickelte er die Cross Channel Strategie. Als Experte für Automotive Marketing ist er spezialisiert auf Digitale Transformation im Kommunikationsbereich. Mehr...