Tampilkan postingan dengan label Mazda. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Mazda. Tampilkan semua postingan

Mazda Australia Spicing Up New BT-50 with Locally Developed Accessories


When the new generation of the 2012 Ford Ranger’s Japanese sibling, the Mazda BT-50 pickup truck, goes on sale in Australia later this year, it will be available with a wide variety of locally designed and built genuine accessories, the company said today. Read more »

New Gen Y Buyer Survey Spells Trouble for Detroit


Auto pricing website TrueCar studied the car buying behaviour of four million Gen Y (18 to 27 year-old) over a twenty-four month period and here’s what they found.

Scion took the crown for top brand, with 37.4% of the market and for top model (the tC coupe), with 21.2%, while second place went to Mitsubishi (32.1%) and their Lancer sedan (20.3%).

Mazda was the third most visited brand for Gen Y buyers, though only 17th in terms of model. The top four vehicle choices were Japanese, with a German in seventh place and a South Korean in ninth.

Read more »

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: June 2011



It's another million fan milestone for BMW this last month as they crossed 6 million fans and have annihilated the challenge they were receiving from Audi earlier this year. It's tough to say how much of BMW's fan growth is due to sheer brand advocacy or how much of it is due to marketing efforts from all of its International markets. What is known is that the BMW team is leveraging the behaviors of the Facebook platform in creative ways.

Take for instance the latest activation from BMW where they are showcasing their Two Originals hommage promoting the original 328i with a revised future 328i concept. Part of the effort is a Facebook application that let's their fans create their own film and personal expression that they can then share with friends. It actually gives people a reason to share. It's not just a share button next to a video or promotion asking people to simply "like" a post. This is content integration that is creative and self-expressive which is what social media is all about.

The BMW example pulls in photo content from a Facebook profile and uses that to express the person's originality. It's not too much different than a recent viral execution from Intel called the Museum of Me that also recycled a user's Facebook content for brand benefit.

Meanwhile other brands continue to buy ad units promoting their page. Of note in June were some significant ad buys from Fiat USA who seemed to have an ad pushing their fan page to me about every second or third time I logged into Facebook, oddly I've been a fan for several months. Lexus also ran some ad units that drove to their fan page which accounts for their double-digit 10% growth in June.


Mazda, Dodge and MINI also experienced some decent fan growth in June. Dodge is expanding their social presence and activating some attention to the SRT brand with its Driving SRT and SRT Track Experience fan pages. Oddly the primary Dodge fan page does not "Like" these pages. Though fan growth for Dodge is not really being driven by the SRT pages; instead, Dodge has been running ad units also promoting its brand pages last June. I did not run across media for Mazda or MINI in June, but that's not to say there was no media or promotion through other mediums like email.

Overall it was a pretty slow month in June for automotive Facebook fan pages. The latest development is Google+ in the past week and already Ford has created a page. Perhaps someday this report will be looking at Google+ Circle numbers.




The...Lime Lantern: Mazda’s Special Edition MX-5 Roadster Coupe Karai


Another week, and rather than just another Mazda, it’s another MX-5 special edition. This one is called Karai, which according to the company is Japanese for ‘sharp’, and it comes to us from Mazda’s European division.

The Karai is based on the MX-5 Roadster coupe, which means it is fitted with a retractable hardtop. It boasts a unique lime-green paint called “Metal Green Metallic” for the body and contrasting glossy black finish for metal top, exterior mirrors, trim accents such as the front grille and fog lamp surrounds, as well as the 17-inch multispoke alloy wheels that are shod in low profile performance tires.

Read more »

Refreshed Mazda Demio goes on Sale in Japan


Mazda announced today that sales of the facelifted Mazda Demio, or Mazda2 as the rest of the world knows it, have begun in Japan. The new Mazda2 is the company’s supermini and the target sales for its home market is 6,000 units per month. Read more »

A Mazda MX-5 On Steroids: Australia’s V8 Engined Bullet Roadster


In the late ‘90s, Australian John Bettini unleashed onto the word the Bullet Roadster. What begin life as a heavily modified Mazda MX-5 with an RX-7 13B powerplant gradually evolved into a V8-engined monster like the one you see here that we found for sale in Queensland, Australia.

According to the seller, this was the fifth Bullet Roadster built and the first V8-engined one to roll out of the company’s then new Chinderah, NSW factory. It’s all hearsay, of course, but I’m willing to believe the words of a 62yo motoring enthusiast with arthritic knees. So here goes...

Bullet No. 5 was a special order from a man named George Covacic who supplied a 4.6-liter all-alloy, fuel injected V8 crate motor along with a Tremac 5-speed manual transmission and the differential from a Holden Commodore SS. Like all Bullet supercars, the brakes and suspension came from the Mazda RX-7.

Read more »

Mazda’s Legendary 787B Le-Mans Winner to Race at Goodwood


It’s been 20 years already, yet it feels like yesterday when Mazda in 1991 became the first, and to date, the only Japanese manufacturer to win the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race. The weapon of choice was the rotary-engine-powered 787B, which sported a carbonfibre body, an output of 700 PS and a 210 mph (338 km/h) top speed. Read more »

Mazda MX-5 Review

Performance
The MX-5 comes with either a 124bhp 1.8- or a 158bhp 2.0-litre engine. Both normally have five-speed gearboxes but the 2.0-litre is available with an optional close-ratio six-speed unit.

A six-speed automatic gearbox is an option for the 2.0. Both engines only come alive when they're worked hard, but do so and they're lively.

Ride & Handling
You want your roadster to be fun? The MX-5 will be right up your street. The light body and rear-wheel drive chassis give it outstanding balance and just keeps on gripping through corners. Sensitive, communicative steering adds to the experience.

The ride is firm but not uncomfortable, although Sport versions have stiffer suspension that is less forgiving.
Refinement
With the roof down, the breeze is well isolated and the high-backed sports seats help prevent draughts around the driver and passenger. Roof up, the fabric does a decent job of blotting out wind noise, but if you do a lot of winter motorway driving, it is worth paying the extra for the Roadster Coupe's hard top. Both engines sound rather gruff and boomy, and it's best to avoid the automatic gearbox, which isn't very smooth.

Mazda and Sumitomo to Open New Plant in Mexico, Sales Company in Brazil


Mazda Motor Corporation announced today that it is opening a new production facility in Mexico, and a sales company in Brazil, both in collaboration with Sumitomo. The Japanese manufacture proceeded with these moves in order to strengthen its presence in the rapidly growing Central and South American markets. Read more »

Mazda5 2011


The all-new Mazda5 is fitted with a newly-developed 2.0-litre DISI1 petrol engine equipped with i-stop, and a six-speed manual transmission with gear ratios specific to this version. This new direct-injection petrol offers linear and smooth performance characteristics and is fun to drive. It is also one of the most frugal and clean C-MAVs on the market, achieving approximately 15 percent reduction in CO2 emissions compared to the 2.0-litre petrol it replaces. The gasoline line-up features a 1.8-litre engine with a six-speed manual transmission as well.
The all-new 2011 Mazda5 will go on sale in Europe this fall.


Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: December 2010



Milestones are a time for celebration. BMW gave thanks to its fans when it crossed 1/2 million fans. Audi recently celebrated its reaching 2 million fans and Mercedes Benz also showed some appreciation when it hit 2 million fans. All of these prior celebrations involved a wall post and video, but none of the automotive companies have done anything truly creative to celebrate such a milestone until now.

Porsche passed the 1 million fan mark a couple weeks ago and as part of the celebration they are placing a special model Porsche in the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart. Fans can ask for their name to be on the displayed vehicle by signing up on their Facebook fan page tab called "1,000,000". It's a creative way to bring the milestone to life, much more interesting than some thrown together ad agency video.


Major milestones aside, GMC blew everyone away with the most significant monthly fan gain - a whopping 95%. Like most double-digit changes, GMC's rise is attributable to media spend driving fans to their Facebook page. GMC has a sponsorship with the NFL that has fans voting for the "Never Say Never Moment of the Week." There are weekly prizes, a trip to the Super Bowl and a chance to win a 2011 GMC Sierra Denali.

Hyundai ran some reachblocks in the beginning of December. Other companies that did some marketing in Facebook were Lexus, Chrysler, and Dodge (this is not a comprehensive list just some of the ads I personally saw.) Mercedes-Benz worked to promote their Tweet Race. The ad units sent people to the recently created Mercedes-Benz USA Facebook fan page.

Yes, Mercedes like BMW, Mini and Smart now has a "USA" fan page. As part of their way to create interest for the page they are doing the "World's First Twitter-Fueled Race" which looks basically like a road-trip with four teams driving from four different cities to the Super Bowl in Dallas. This sounds eerily similar to last year's Chevrolet SXSW road-trip scavenger hunt. (Look for a coming article on Mercedes' event around when it begins on February 2.)

A final insight in December comes from Mazda. I find it interesting how some brands promote sales events (Acura has one right now), or they keep a corporate logo, or others promote a new product as part of Facebook's profile image. Mazda is promoting their new Mazda5 but they also found a nice, clean way to promote their other social media brand destinations in the profile picture. The promotion of other channels and their dot.com site is effectively communicated.



Download the Excel file: Facebook Auto Fan File (December 2010)

Did Mazda Canada Start Leasing Due to Twitter?



Tino Rossini is very interesting person I have come to know through social media. He is part of an automotive blog based in Canada called Strada: Energize Your Automotive Experience. The blog covers a lot of aspects common to most automotive blogs: reviews, thoughts on the industry, some motor-sports but what makes this blog a bit more unique is Tino who is a retiree with a lot of interesting perspectives and historical knowledge of the industry and also someone very engaged in social media.

Why am I sharing all this on an automotive marketing blog?

Well this morning Tino shared with me a post on his blog that shared an example of how a brand (@MazdaCanada), a dealership (@AchillesMazda), a user forum (@MazdaForums) and an automotive blogger (@stradablog) all conversed on a review of a Mazda 6 that possibly contributed to Mazda Canada offering leasing on the 6, which it wasn't doing until shortly after some exchanges on Twitter.

All of this could've just been coincidence, but it is an interesting tale and probably had some impact on the decision.

Read the article here for the full story.

This is interesting because it demonstrates a couple things 1) how brands are engaging online 2) how dealerships are actively participating 3) how forums are getting outside of message boards and on to Twitter 4) how social media can impact marketing sales strategy.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: March 2010



It’s getting pretty interesting on Facebook these days. Facebook is finally making brand Fan pages, oops I mean Like pages – more on that later, clearly pages owned by brands. Unofficial pages will soon move to the new Facebook Community pages designation with some changes in functionality, plus if they reach some threshold of fans they turn into community ran pages (think Wiki.)

The Like pages, okay they will still be called Fan Pages, will change a commonly held behavior where people “Become a Fan” of a brand or product. Soon people will simply “Like” a brand or product page. According to Facebook, people choose Like significantly more than they choose Become a Fan; though, how is this really that surprising when one can Like just about everything on Facebook? By design, Like should garner far more clicks than Become a Fan, but someone looked at some data and didn’t think about the user interface already in place to justify the decision.


Free Cars & Basketball

The big news this month was a nicely ran promotion from Infiniti that was done to support a College Basketball bracket game on CBS Sports. Infiniti ran banner ads supporting their marketing of the new M37/M56 models where one could win a new M.

What was interesting is that Infiniti also bought some media on Facebook supporting the CBS Bracket Challenge but also gave people an opportunity to Become a Fan of the Infiniti fan page. In the day or two the ad started running on Facebook, Infiniti added around 50,000 fans. Now I never know how many impressions a brand bought to get such a gain, but it is still an impressive upswing for the brand and the combination with the College Basketball passion point surely helped increase engagement.

Jeep was an interesting one this month too. They ran a Tweet-to-Win contest to increase the exposure of their @Jeep Twitter account, but to find out when Jeep was going to ask a trivia question for their Twitter contest people had to visit the Jeep Facebook page to learn the time. One would think this promotion would also increase Facebook fan page numbers for Jeep since they were giving away a free Jeep Wrangler Islander Edition. Unfortunately, Jeep had typical fan growth that ran in the 3% increase realm for March, in other words no gain from the Tweet-to-Win contest; though they did have significant follower growth on Twitter (more here.)


Continuous Marketing

Several brands continued running ads throughout most of the month of March, if not all of March. They included Mazda, Dodge and Toyota; though, Toyota’s ads were not a promotion to increase Fans of their fan page; rather, they promoted Toyota loyalty (you can learn more about that effort by reading my post on Toyota’s marketing loyalty.)

The Mazda and Dodge ads were constantly showing up on my Facebook pages even though I’m already a fan of both brands. This makes me wonder two things. Does Facebook not support a good retargeting message capability on their site or is it that the Facebook inventory of relevant ads is so small they keep serving me the same units? Seems it could be a little of both and one would think after a brand has gained that person as a fan that other messages could be sent to support further brand engagement.



Housecleaning

Lincoln has officially taken over their fan page and now are doing regular updates yet still not Become a Fan campaigns or promotion of the page (full disclosure: I'm involved with this effort.) Scion had asked their unofficial fan page to be identified as such last month, well now we know why as Scion has started an official Facebook page that had it's first post Monday March 29, 2010.

In European Facebook news, Aston Martin finally took ownership of a friendly URL for their fan page http://www.facebook.com/astonmartin. Also, I changed my tracking of SMART as I follow the global fan pages for BMW and MINI so it seemed appropriate to follow SMART's global page instead of it's USA specific fan page.



Download the Excel file: Facebook Auto Fan File (March 2010)

Competitor Websites Respond to Toyota Recall Woes



Toyota is gearing up for a March rebound with 0% financing and aggressive lease pricing after taking a 9% hit in year-over-year sales last February due to their very public recalls. Meanwhile everyone is trying to capitalize on Toyota's quality troubles. Late night sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live poked fun at Toyota's issues by putting two people in an unattended accelerating Toyota Prius with the fake ad saying "Ford: We make hybrids too."

Comedic marketing spoofs aside, it is interesting to see how Toyota's competitors are responding to the recalls at their manufacturer websites.

The strongest marketing message comes from General Motors. For example, their Chevy homepage features a promotion tile reading "Special information for Toyota owners/lessses" that is in the most prominent position in the promotion banner ribbon on the page (I say most prominent because users tend to click mostly on links to the far the left as American consumers read left to right.)

Ford also features a nod to the Toyota quality issues but in a more tempered way by promoting a quality claim the brand has been using since last year after a major quality report put Ford on par with Toyota and Honda. The message is more about Ford and less about their competitor Toyota. The promo reads "Learn more about why Ford quality can't be beat by Honda or Toyota."

The only other manufacture website I found promoting a strong quality message on their homepage is Hyundai. Hyundai uses an image from their recent Sonata campaign, "Hyundai Quality: Hyundai Held to a Higher Standard." This approach uses no competitor call-outs, but it certainly can be read as a strategic message to appeal to people cross-shopping Hyundai with Toyota.

The home teams in Japan - Honda, Mazda, and Nissan - make no mention of quality or Toyota on their home pages. Seems local support is strong for the time being.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: February 2010



It’s been a very interesting month on Facebook for the automotive industry. A lot of companies are getting more aggressive with their marketing efforts and showed up with some decent spend promoting their brand fan pages in February, the Super Bowl happened, and Toyota is in a tailspin.

Marketing For Fans

Several brands did “Facebook Fan” campaigns. Fan campaigns are ad unit buys that typically show up on the Home News Feed page of Facebook in the Sponsored section between Suggestions and Events content. The ad units feature a “Become a Fan” button that allows people to easily fan a page without even having to visit it.

Dodge ran the most significant Fan campaign in February. They most have bought a full month of ad units, only the third time I’ve ever seen a brand do such a thing (VW and Honda being the other two.) Dodge ran ads featuring two messages. One featured their Super Bowl video “Man’s Last Stand” and the other linked to the Dodge Fan Page tab talking about their Super Beard Contest.

Mazda also bought several weeks of Fan ad units in conjunction with their Mazda 2 vehicle launch. The ads asked users to “Join the Movement.” The ads did not feature a vehicle image; instead, the unit was a blue-on-blue checkered flag with a small Mazda logo. Very little branding in the units but Mazda had a significant percentage jump in Facebook fans, a whopping 568% growth in February. Could it have been more with a stronger logo or did they gain more with less branding? Tough to say, but Mazda definitely attracted a strong number of fans with their buy.

It’s hard to say whether Dodge or Mazda did better with their marketing buy on Facebook without knowing impressions bought and how targeted the buy was. Percentage wise Mazda did far better than Dodge’s 126% growth, but Dodge had a much higher starting number of fans. Dodge grew by 36,000 fans versus Mazda’s 18,000 fans or two times the growth in numbers over Mazda.



Volkswagen did a little bit of marketing in February too to further promote their PunchDub Super Bowl ad. They only ran Fan ad units for either a day or few days after the Sunday following the game. The ad units also included the Super Bowl commercial they did.

Ram Trucks and Acura both did marketing buys too, but nothing that significant. Acura saw growth of 10,000 fans but that probably didn’t involve much of an ad buy with targeted marketing spend and some fan growth due to organic increases; though, the 185% growth number shows they did accurately reach their fans.

Let’s Talk Toyota

This morning as I was finishing this article an article showed up on AdAge about “The Cult of Toyota” and how since the recall Toyota fans are rallying to the brand with a 10% growth in fans since the recall announcements that started at the end of January.

From the article:

“According to Doug Frisbie, Toyota Motor Sales USA's national social media and marketing integration manager, the automaker has actually grown its Facebook fan base more than 10% since late January, around the time of the marketer's Jan. 21 recall announcement and its Jan. 26 stop-sale date.

“In fact, Mr. Frisbie said the automaker has been somewhat surprised by the large number of customers who have leapt to Toyota's defense in ‘an authentic way.’

“That's a testament to the resilience of the brand, but also to Toyota's ability to quickly pick up one of the most important tools in a crisis-communications handbook: social media.”
First of all, the number is 15% in February, but that’s not my issue with the assessment.



If we look back at Toyota’s growth in fans month-by-month we notice two things. One, they have doubled their percentage growth of fans gained from 7% to 15% from the January to February. So, AdAge is right the brand is attracting more fans since the recall so the recall must be the reason. Maybe not if we look at what else stands out in the data – they grew even more in November 2009 yet there was no recall then nor did they market for fans that month.

I would argue one couldn’t really account any surge in fans due to the recall. This is only four months of data and it is not clear what a typical growth in fans is for the brand. It looks to be somewhere around 11% on average so a 15% gain in one month really isn’t that significant especially when you consider how many other brands not marketing and not going through any major PR issues are also gaining fans in the double-digits.

One of the interesting things about doing this monthly "Facebook Fans by Brands" report is seeing how the spin is done to showcase things that seem unusual to the casual observer, but are really not. What would be interesting with the Toyota situation is to evaluate the brand’s conversations on its Facebook fan page since the recall. Now that might show something unusual or interesting.

A Couple House Cleaning Items

Suzuki decided to move their Facebook automotive content to a new Fan Page for Suzuki Autos that did cause some dip in their numbers since my prior calculations were using a more broad Suzuki Fan page that encompassed all of the brand's vehicles including motorcycles and recreational products.



Finally, I have been tracking Scion's brand page for quite sometime but just learned this month, when the fan page was updated with information about it being an Unofficial Fan Page, that it is not managed by the brand. Also, the page received a new friendly URL http://www.facebook.com/UnofficialScion. So, I have removed Scion from the report since they currently do not have a Fan Page for the brand; though, they do have one now for their Release Series vehicle line.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: January 2010


There is one clear leader in this month’s Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand report: Volvo. They ran some advertising campaigns developed for the Facebook platform. The first is one that’s been up a few months but was continuing to get some media dollars, Drive Around the World. The other is a lifestyle brand experience called Ice Camp that also has its own Facebook page.


The Drive Around the World has Facebook friends travel together as each friend takes over the drive like passing a baton in a race. Volvo will then donate 15,000 Euros to a charity that fights Global Warming. Obviously the game has broad appeal with the charity aspect and social enablement. Altogether Volvo saw a 421% increase in January fan numbers. Quite impressive though like many of the huge percentage changes we have seen they only started with 11,875 fans at the beginning of the month.

Most brands saw typical gains in January. GM brands saw a slowing down since backing off media spend on the platform, particularly Chevrolet and Cadillac (both had 50% gains in recent months), but this is typical and shows the difference between organic and media driven growth.

Zoom. Zoom.

Mazda saw a nice improvement this month. They also moved their Mazda North America page into the Mazda Facebook fan page which got rid of some confusion around how one follows the brand. The now retired Mazda North America fan page was more for Public Relations communications which seemed duplicative to the http://www.facebook.com/Mazda fan page.

Both MINI and Acura ran advertisements in Facebook that I caught during the month. The Acura one was for increasing fans of their ZDX vehicle page, not the primary brand fan page. Meanwhile MINI promoted their coming Countryman SUV. This shows that both brands are interested in further developing vehicle fan pages which to me seems odd since both are niche vehicles and it would be better to get consumers engaged more with the brand than an isolated product.

Toyota’s Public Relations Issue

Toyota is an interesting brand this month, not so much for its growth but it’s public relations fiasco with its faulty pedals on 8 vehicles. Currently, the Toyota fan page has a status update pointing fans to http://www.toyota.com/recall for information about the company’s response and updates. This shows that brand pages can act as another communication medium to keep consumers up to date on major announcements.

Brands be warned; one “fan” keeps posting a news video that discusses Toyota allegedly concealing and destroying information. That “fan” has posted the story five times with four posts having been deleted by the page administrators. He continues to post the story on the Toyota fan page wall. So, it works both ways and the brand should just let the post live since it is just a link to a news story and removing these posts might cause more of a PR issue.





Download the Excel file: Facebook Auto Fan File (January 2010)