HAVE YOU LOOKED around your neighborhood lately? Especially if you're in the suburbs, chances are you see a lot of folks driving SUVs. Families with several children. Weekend warriors who need to haul around a lot of sports equipment. Couples who may never venture beyond the mall parking lot but want room for their Pottery Barn purchases.
For many automotive manufacturers, SUVs are a big part of their business. And keeping the loyalty of those drivers who are willing to pay a premium price for prestige and cargo space is vital.
Honda is set to introduce a new version of its CR-V this month. To keep the brand in the hearts and minds of Honda buyers (and help sell down existing inventory), the car company turned to its agency Targetbase, which tapped Structural Graphics to create a dimensional mailer that hit mailboxes this spring. The 300,000-piece mailing resulted in a $100 cost per acquisition, which pleased the manufacturer. "Even though targeted direct mail and e-mail still suffers from being able to scale to larger volumes, it certainly reduces the need for incentive packages," says Michael Keranen, American Honda's assistant vice president of e-business and CRM.
The CR-V ranges in price from $20,000 to $25,000 depending on equipment. New-car dealers sold 16.94 million units in 2005, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association. Total dealership dollar sales exceeded $699 billion last year, down about 2% from 2004. However, 2005 ranked third among the seven best years ever for new-unit sales by franchised dealers.
Simply put, cars are high-value products and the automotive industry is extremely competitive. Thus the primary purpose of dimensional pieces is to get the message noticed, says Michael Dambra, vice president for marketing and sales at Structural Graphics.
“No matter how great their ad message is, unless someone stops and looks at it, it's not doing the job,” says Dambra. “The work we're producing captures attention and gets [prospects] to interact with the message.”
Auto manufacturers often use dimensional pieces for big news, like new vehicle launches or redesigns, he says. For example, Jeep worked with Structural Graphics on a magazine insert that served as an interactive product demonstration when the manufacturer lengthened the Wrangler by more than a foot and renamed it the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon.
The goal for such automotive pieces varies, notes Dambra. Some manufacturers simply want to call attention to the brand, while Lincoln Mercury did a piece specifically designed to encourage test drives. And Structural Graphics also has done pieces for parts managers trying to solicit interest in aftermarket parts and accessories.
House files typically are used for automotive dimensional mailings, says Dambra. “Our work is somewhat more expensive than traditional flat work, so you want to have a highly qualified list. It makes perfect sense to send a customer who is interested in a specific model a mailing about an update to that model.”
The cost of automotive pieces varies greatly depending on the project. Dambra says his company has done mailings for between 60 and 80 cents per piece, as well as those than run $7 to $8 apiece. Likewise, volumes have run from 20,000 up to 1 million pieces.
In past years, the automotive launch season for new models was late fall, October through November. Now, says Dambra, there's no longer a slow or busy season for car advertising. Automakers bring out new models throughout the year.
The CR-V mailing piece, created with Honda's Irving, TX agency Targetbase, was designed to play up the vehicle's versatility and show that not only is it stylish and playful but safe and secure as well, he says.
“There's a loyal base to both Honda and the CR-V brand, and Honda wanted to reach out to them,” says Brett Benton, Targetbase's vice president for print production.
The mailing dropped April 12. “The piece went to customers in our database who, based on analytics, we know are in the market,” says American Honda's Keranan.
The front of the piece shows a head-on view of the CR-V. Turn the wheel on the side of the package and you get a view of a different driver and passengers, showcasing the car's attributes. A mom with a toddler in a car seat represents “secure,” while a quartet of laughing young women is “playful” and a middle-aged couple is “stylish.”
On the inside, a spin of the wheel provides different scenarios for the sentence “My family loves the CR-V because…” Situations include “My son's learning to drive in it,” “It hauls their team equipment,” “It's a good example for the kids,” and “It makes road trips affordable.”
The ending for the sentence is always “…and it's a Honda.” That tagline is the URL for a Web site (www.anditsa.honda.com) where prospects can create “CR-V Stories.” Like a virtual “Mad Lib,” visitors choose nouns, adjectives and verbs from drop-down menus to tell a silly tale about an outing in the car. When there, they also can link over to the main Honda CR-V page and “build” their own vehicle. Links are offered to find a local dealer and price out a version of the car, and a “send to a friend” option adds a viral element to the site.
The mailing's inside copy continues with the theme:
“It's not just an SUV, it's a CR-V. Lean enough to park downtown yet spacious enough for a cooler full of bait. Stylish enough to make heads turn but never gets dirty looks. Well appointed but no nonsense. And underneath it all, it's built on years of Honda engineering. Only one compact SUV can claim that.”
Sometimes dimensional mailings are more whiz-bang, while others are more practical, says Dambra. The wheel-format piece was fairly standard, save for the fact it was designed with a paper rather than metal grommet. This was to make it easier for the piece to be handled by the U.S. Postal Service.
The mailing served to generate leads and build the brand. Return on investment was judged on sales conversions and how well the piece drove people to the Web site to request quotes, says Keranen. Control cells were used to verify the list's quality.
An e-mail blast was done along with the direct mailing to test the combination's effectiveness. “We saw better results doing both,” notes Keranen.
Overall, the mailing produced a double-digit gain based on sales vs. the normal retail sales promotion mix. “We know we targeted very well,” he says.
