TV Advertising Helps 3 Auto Brands Stand Out!

What do Hyundai/Kia, Subaru and Volkswagen all have in common?

1) They spent considerably more on television advertising for the first 6 months of 2009, as a percentage of their ad budgets, than the auto industry average.

Brand	% of ad budget spent on TV Advertising
Hyundai/Kia	78.4%
Subaru	90.0%
Volkswagen	80.7%
*Industry Avg.*	*62.5%*

2) All three auto makers saw their market share increase substantially over the same period a year ago.

Brand	Market Share Increase
Hyundai/Kia	39.7%
Subaru	52.9%
Volkswagen	28.8%

3) All three posted year-over-year unit sales decreases (every single manufacturer suffered decreases in sales during this period) that were considerably less than the industry average.

Brand	Unit Sales Decreases
Hyundai/Kia	-9.4%
Subaru	-0.8%
Volkswagen	-16.4%
*Industry Avg.*	*– 35.1%*

4) All three brands allocated a smaller percentage of their ad budgets to Internet advertising than the industry average:

Brand	% of ad budget spent on U.S. Internet Advertising
Hyundai/Kia	3.7%
Subaru	5.4%
Volkswagen	4.0%
*Industry Avg.*	*7.5%*

What do I think?

First of all, I think all three auto makers have done a great job bringing products to market that people actually want to buy. That’s most important to remember.

I also think it’s hard to refute what the data above says about their advertising decisions. There’s no denying, I’ve seen a ton of compelling television commercials for Hyundai, Subaru and Volkswagen this past year … and it would appear I was not the only one.

I don’t care how the new media crowd spins it, when a brand like Subaru spends 90% of their total ad budget on television and is able to increase market share by 53% — it makes a compelling case for the power of television advertising. Short and simple.

And when you add in the impressive sales performances by Hyundai and Volkswagen, it’s even harder to ignore that television played more than just a casual role in success of all three auto makers. Wouldn’t you agree?

Source: TNS Media Intelligence/Automotive News

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Metrics, Trends, TV advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.