Despite the downturn in the automobile sector, it has seen multiple launches in August. It was marked by awaited launches of Kia Seltos, Hyundai Grand i10 Nios, Renault Triber and Harley Davidson Run Street. Automobile launches are marked by huge marketing investments and the initial interest in the product sets the order for the lifetime sales of the vehicle.
It is interesting to look at the stark differences in the media mix of the brands when it comes to promotion. The difference in preferred media is noticeable. The automobile as an industry has always relied on traditional forms of marketing like TV, Radio and Outdoor Advertising, although digital marketing mix has started to grow in recent years. Renault for their recent launch of Triber relied on Print and Radio heavy campaigns. For impact, they had resorted to TOI Print Jackets. TOI Printed edition jackets is one medium which has got a phenomenal reach. It was used twice by Renault to promote their brand, one during the announcement of bookings open on 17th August and second on 29th August, just a day after launch to sustain the launch momentum and create awareness. To sustain the buzz, there was also a strong radio presence with spots on channels like Radio Mirchi.
The strategy of utilizing TOI jackets as an impact medium paid dividends as the searches for the car spiked 2.5 times on the day of booking announcement. Later during the strategy to create awareness of the launch, the TOI jacket helped in increasing searches of the car by as much as 8 times from daily average. The spike was also most evident at 8 AM in the morning which is the time when most people have a first look at the morning dose of news.
Impact of TOI Jacket on Searches of Renault Triber
Hyundai i10 Nios TOI Jacket (21 Aug)
Any product launch is divided into three phases, a build-up phase before launch where brands try to amplify the reach, the launch day and the post-launch phase where brands try to both increase reach and maximize conversions. One of the most difficult tasks post launches is to sustain the momentum of the product launch and drive conversions. DeepFlux™ models have identified that google searches of a product are a highly correlated leading indicator of products demands.
Hyundai on its launch of Grand i10 Nios had taken a similar stance, and on the next day of the launch (21st August) had also taken a TOI Jacket. However, Kia Seltos resorted to the new-age equivalent of print jackets, Youtube Masthead on the next day of the much-awaited Seltos launch.
When the two impact properties of Masthead and TOI Jacket were compared head to head for multiple launches, it appeared that TOI Jacket has a better impact in sustaining searches when it was used as a medium in the days after launch. Social numbers in terms of social buzz also show a similar story. Brands that advertised with TOI Jackets were nearly 1.5X more impactful in sustaining searches than brands that used YT masthead as impact property post-launch. All these have to be also analyzed from an ROI perspective which depends on the price the advertiser pays for these impact properties. Secondly, at a regional level, cities like Delhi seem much more sensitive to Print ads than Maharashtra and Karnataka and a few other states.
Media mix and attribution are a complex topic, debated heavily by advertisers. Selecting the preferred mediums of impact and the online-offline media split will always depend on a lot of subjective factors. However, marketers need to increasingly look at custom attribution models and various lead indicators to come up with the right media mix.
At DeepFlux™, we have build attribution models for various industries which look at not only online but offline mediums. For further assistance on your upcoming product launch, drop a mail at contact@deepflux.io.
By Abhimanyu Vyas