gmtPLUS09 | live from Seoul

Giant Ford logo at the Ford Proving Grounds, Dearborn. A little to the east is what appears to be a large black vehicle driving around the track.

Link: Google Sightseeing  Ford Proving Grounds, Dearborn.

Getting through to the powerful
and elusive Generation Y is crucial to automotive marketers. To reach
the 63 million Americans born between 1980 and 1994, car companies are
relying less on traditional media advertising and more on event
marketing, product placement and digital media.

By 2010, Generation Y will buy one of every four new cars and
trucks sold in the United States, say executives of Scion, the youth
brand of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. By 2020, Scion says, that share
will rise to 40 percent.

As they chase Generation Y, automakers say their advertising plans include less mainstream media.
Ford Division will spend less than 80 percent of its marketing
dollars this year on traditional TV and print advertising. Ten years ago that figure was 98
percent.
Ford is spending more on so-called customer-relationship
marketing (CRM). That includes Internet promotions; integration of Ford
vehicles in TV shows, movies and video games; and sponsorship of sports
and music events.

Many of these efforts by automakers are aimed at young
consumers. American Honda Motor Co. Inc. is sponsoring a tour this year
by alternative rock band Maroon 5.
Toyota’s new marketing deal with the National Basketball
Association includes special advertising and marketing rights. They
include signs during games and the use of the NBA logo in Toyota
promotional efforts.

No hard sell

The key to reaching Generation Y, marketers say, is avoiding the hard sell.

Young consumers "don’t like in-your-face marketing," Miles Johnson of Ford says. "They want to find you on their own."

As a result, automakers seek TV options other than the traditional 30-second spot. Product placement is one such alternative.

• The April 14 episode of the NBC reality series "The Apprentice"
  assigned contestants to create a launch campaign for the Pontiac
  Solstice roadster. Pontiac has incorporated its vehicles into stunts on
  the CBS series "Survivor."
  
• Ford places its vehicles in music videos shown on Fox’s
  "American Idol." Those placements are part of a larger deal that
  includes Ford commercials on the show.
  Such placements also occur on scripted series that appeal to
  young viewers. A central character on Fox’s "The O.C." drives a new
  Ford Mustang.
  

New appetites

Some automakers simply aren’t familiar with the diverse youth
market, says Simon Needham, group creative director of Attik, a San
Francisco ad agency that has the Scion account.
Needham cites a youth-oriented magazine, Yellow Rat Bastard,
in which he sought to run Scion ads. "Imagine trying to explain that
one to the executives," Needham says.

Generation Y has a constantly changing media appetite and is
easily bored, Needham says. Many young consumers have access to
technology such as the TiVo personal video recorder that allows them to
avoid TV commercials.
Scion’s Dawn Ahmed says the growth of such technology is "something
that’s looming on the horizon that we need to address fairly quickly."

Link: Automotive News.

A friend forwarded me a recent  trend tabloid today. If these services were freely available years ago as they are now I wouldn’t have much to gripe about.  Today, we’re
already overloaded with information from far too many credible news
sources as it is. I guess, with "trend forecast" being a touted as a
valuable asset in many industries in recent years was the catalyst for
the ‘trend’ in
creating trend forecasting publications. But in the end these online
publications are too late, too much.  I guess I have a grudge because
they are doing a disservice to the real professionals who forecast and
interpret trends.

Why do I consider Iconoculture, Trendsetters, Trendwatching and other online publications as tabloids?

The democratization of technology has given these firms the means to
cheapen the tools and processes of trend gathering and reporting. And
the products that they offer for free or for sale are highly speculative, diluted (too
broad in scale and without focus) and manufactured without any hard
evidence and involves little or no ethnography or demographic studies.
They have created a monster to justify their profit-driven existence.

Another annoyance are the free newsletters often arrive too often and eventually clog up your inbox/junk folders.

Here’s my point: These tabloids filter and collect all kinds of news
and topics, then throw everything out there and wait for you to grab
whatever pieces to ‘paint’ the picture. If that’s the type of mumbo
jumbo you want, that’s fine.

If all this information is so readily available for any individual (including your competitors), then what competitive advantage do you have in using
these for your planning and strategy?

Also, if every product/furniture/fashion/graphic
designer, business analyst or decision-maker reads their respective
trade magazines, how would it be possible for distinguished and
innovative  products and services to come out. This is exactly what
happened at this year’s Milan Furniture Fair.

If everyone in their industry makes the same predictions year after
year, it can only mean one thing: they are reading the same reports,
talking to the same people, etc. It should be best to call up an acquaintance and enter his "circle of
trust". He and his group could just may offer a fresh perspective on your seemingly unrelated industry.

It’s not way YOU say it is. It’s what THEY say it is. This should be what every marketer should remember about brands.

Another example of empowered consumers making their own commercials/short films: Nike commercial.

A NY Times article covering the near-Osaka train accident puts blame on Japan’s punctuality culture. As a foreigner looking in, I have always seemed to be amazed with the extent of this mindset. Any activity - no matter how miniscule or large - became a practiced zen-like art form. The final product of this art form represents optimum efficiency and punctuality.

When citizens come to fashion their daily lives around the systematic schedules of mass transit, I can see with my own eyes the destructive path this type of mindset and culture can lead. It’s ridiculous to blame this accident solely on the Japanese culture. Sure they may be widely recognized as the world’s most punctual and efficient but any human who is subjected to an environment with tight schedules and pressure to perform would falter just the same. Look at what happened in Sri Lanka yesterday. A bus driver attempting to make up for lost time, attempted to out gun an on-coming train and 35 lives were lost.

These type of accidents unfortunately happen regularly. It’s a society flaw, not just a Japanese thing.

Link: Gen Kanai weblog: Japanese punctuality culture.