Business Week reporter Ron Grove has a brand new piece out on Audi that provides some interesting insight into the automaker’s entertainment marketing strategy.
“These are rough times for car companies. Executives from Detroit’s Big Three are getting grilled on Capitol Hill. Folks are ignoring new cars in droves, and TV ads—well, they’re sounding a bit desperate. So what’s a car company to do? Hit the movies, that’s what.”
With the assistance of entertainment agency Propoganda, Audi has charted an ambitious course, targeting high profile placements, promotions, and event sponsorships. While the majority of brands may not be able to afford the extensive agency, product, and promotional resources employed by Audi in pursuit of this strategy, there are a still a number of key learnings that can be gleaned for any brand hoping to tailgate on their success in a challenging economy:
(1) Match Audience Target with Content Strategy: As Audi CMO Scott Keogh states, “What we really needed was to get America talking, and that meant targeting Hollywood.” Every marketer should begin with a variant of Scott’s statement:
What we really needed was to get “X” talking, and that meant targeting “Y”.
As a mass market (albeit still luxury) brand, Audi has particularly broad needs for reach and exposure. Consequently, Hollywood blockbusters - even with a higher resource bar required for participation - are an effective vehicle. While there is a tendency to believe bigger is better, a brand with a more targeted demographic focus may be able to achieve the same success as Audi by focusing on highly relevant programming on a slightly smaller scale. Cable television and top digital content offer effective integration opportunities for the right brands (and smaller budgets can command more influence). Begin with who you “really need to get talking” and then choose a medium to match.
(2) High-quality integrations begin with great product: Despite the notion that money alone may buy your product great exposure, integration is not spot advertising and is ultimately an endeavor that must organically match product to characters and plotlines. Audi makes sleek, just plain “cool” cars and as such is in high demand from creatives who like the aesthetics of the vehicle. Iconic brands with eye catching product (i.e. Apple) are assured of significant inbound interest from producers simply seeking clearance to use the brand to achieve character development. That said, you don’t need to be an established Apple or Audi to catch the eye of creatives. Upstart brands are often an ideal fit for directors trying to paint a character as a trend setter. Build a great product and make it easy for producers to find you (required plug: list your product for free on PlaceVine!)
(3) It’s Not Just About Placement: Brand integration, as we like to define it, spans a range of entertainment marketing activities. At the end of the day, integration is about holistically attaching a brand to an entertainment property and can span everything from placement, promotion, event sponsorship, and creation of new branded content, among other things. As cited in the article, Audi spends heavily in promoting the films in which it participates and has a comprehensive strategy around each property. Even if you are a brand without the media buying prowess of Audi, you must think creatively about how to leverage integration investments. While a placement will garner a certain number of eyeballs, there is massive unlocked value in what you can do as a brand to promote and use that entertainment association through PR, promotions, supplementary media campaigns, events, and consumer product licensing, among other things.
