Driving car brands through the clutter: TV continues to dominate automotive ad spend

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Automotive_Share_Of_Advertising_Spend (1)[2].jpgA cluttered market and fragmented media landscape means that automotive brands must differentiate themselves more than ever according to Nielsen.

 

Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries data shows that Australia is one of the most competitive new car markets in the world. Australia has a total of 67 vehicle brands, in comparison with 51 in the US, 53 in the UK and 49 in Canada.

 

Nielsen Ad Intel spend indicates that TV remains the largest advertising investment for the automotive industry; with half of advertising spend for automotive brands allocated to metro and regional TV. Print advertising received one-fifth of total automotive advertising spend for the 2017 financial year.

Says Michael Brown, associate director at Nielsen: “It’s become a tough competitive landscape – data has shown that consumers are exposed to around 4,000 to 10,000 advertising messages a day, thus we are programmed to filter out most of those messages unless they resonate with us. This has left marketers asking, how do we differentiate ourselves from the rest, how do we win people’s hearts and minds and how do we remain top of mind?”

Top_10_Automotive_Advertisers[3].jpgAn effective ad must have three things: memorability, strong brand association and a simple, clear message to cut through.

 

Says Brown: “Breaking through the clutter has become even more difficult in the day and age of a multi-screening, multi-tasking world. The benefit of TVBE has allowed us to highlight to brands what they need to do to ensure they are breaking through the clutter and relating with consumers.

 

“Their two successful retail campaigns – ‘Toyota Means Business’ and ‘Buyers Advantage’ – were significantly above the Nielsen Global benchmarks on memorability and brand association. Both these campaigns follow Nielsen’s creative and branding best practices.”

 

Outside of the retail sector, automotive still makes up the second highest spending category across the main media channels despite the sector reporting a 7% decline in monitored advertising spend in the 2017 financial year compared to the previous financial year.

 

The top 10 automotive advertisers accounted for 40% of total category spend for the 2017 financial year.