November 2017

Use data to power your next vehicle launch

Use data to power your next vehicle launch 2

Marketing the launch of a vehicle requires so much more than just selling a car in the near term. It’s about selling a feeling, a lifestyle, a persona that enhances the perception of the model in the eyes of the target consumer. While much of the work to conduct a successful launch is accomplished through great creative and persona development, getting that creative in front of the right consumer target is just as critical.

How do you ensure you’re reaching the right people for your next launch campaign? Striking a balance between the art of creating lifestyle attributes and the data science behind car purchase behavior makes all the difference.

LET’S EXAMINE HOW THIS WORKS. FOR A VEHICLE LAUNCH, THERE ARE FOUR KEY CATEGORIES OF AUDIENCES YOU SHOULD CONSIDER:

Of course, the audiences related to each category are dependent upon the model being launched and your business objective. Customization for each of these audiences allows you to hone in on the most effective audience for each category.

Loyalists Defectors Conquests Lifestyle prospects

Use data to power your next vehicle launch 3

Drive consideration with purchase dataStarting with a strong, comprehensive data source of vehicle purchase information is vital to getting the most reliable dataset with which to develop audiences. By partnering with industry leader IHS Markit, Oracle Data Cloud has robust audiences that OEMs can tap into with customized targeting strategies specific to their launch goals.

For Loyalists, the idea is simple—the people who purchase your brand over and over are the best prospects to buy you again. The top of that list is current consumers. And for launches of redesigned models, consider including consumers that purchased your model in the past. Both groups of loyalists are already inclined to be interested in new releases from your brand.

Likewise, winning back Defectors is another key strategy to maximize the potential of your launch campaign. A launch is a perfect opportunity to reach former owners who don’t currently own the brand to re-engage them with an exciting new product that may lure them back.

Reaching Conquests who currently own competitive models in the same vehicle segment also is a prime target. Vehicle ownership data is used to identify which models are most ripe for conquest—that is, the types of in-market consumers most likely to be swayed by your new launch.

Purchase data and lifestyle: better together Launching a new vehicle provides a unique opportunity to move the needle on who considers and buys your brand

— making Lifestyle targeting of paramount importance. However, Lifestyle targeting must incorporate more than just targeting lifestyle sites—with better data, you can create very specific personas that meet the criteria of potential buyers of your new launch vehicle. Targeting the broader persona will help drive awareness. Including an in-market audience via purchase data on top of the persona is essential to ensure you reach all potential buyers.

Ultimately, the most effective use of Lifestyle data often involves a two-pronged strategy to reach the most potential buyers. In many cases, there is a substantial difference between 1) the audience that the brand is hoping to attract and 2) the persona of those that currently buy the brand, the competitors and/or an earlier model of the vehicle to be relaunched.

Buyer personaAspirational persona

Use data to power your next vehicle launch 4

While launches provide the perfect opportunity to shift the buying market for a model, a successful campaign must consider both the existing customer base and the more aspirational target for the vehicle launch.

Let’s look at an example. For a brand relaunching a sporty midsize sedan and hoping to reach millennials, it’s not only essential to think about that millennial aspirational target generally, but also target characteristics of those millennials that may have recently purchased a similar vehicle.

We conducted an analysis for the sporty midsize sedan category and found that millennials attracted to this segment tended to be technically inclined: they play video games at a higher rate than average, have a propensity toward working at a tech job and cross-shop vehicles containing more new technology, including luxury vehicles. When data-driven insights like this are used to hone in on a more specific target audience, we see outcomes that can be improved by more than 35 percent. In other words, the data-driven audience is more than 35 percent likely to purchase the target vehicle—better targeting leads to more buyers.

Therefore, by putting some data science behind the analysis of millennials, the campaign is more likely to hit the aspirational target most receptive to the message. And it also provides some additional insight into the best focus for the creative messaging. Oracle Data Cloud can provide you with a view of the persona of your current buyers to include in your audience plan.

Whether you’re building a Lifestyle plan or looking to win back Defectors, the data experts at Oracle Data Cloud can build a customized plan to meet your needs. We help you identify the right competitive set, demonstrate key lifestyle characteristics of segment buyers or laser focus on a particular buyer subgroup to make your Lifestyle targeting more efficient. By leveraging both art and science to develop a customized audience plan, your vehicle-launch campaign will deliver real results.

35%more likely to purchase

the target vehicle

The data-driven audience is

Use data to power your next vehicle launch 5

Driving real resultsWe took the best practices for a vehicle-launch campaign and customized the audiences for a full-funnel Lexus campaign to launch the new RX. Incorporating both first-party CRM data and third-party data, the audience was 5.2x more likely than the national average to buy a Lexus RX. Specific audiences out performed the overall campaign, including:

5.2x

Customized Lexus RX launch audiences

more likely to buy

90x 10x 8x27x

Hand raisers (from Lexus CRM data) were 90x more likely than the national average to buy a Lexus RX—far surpassing other audiences since they directly showed interest

In-market Lexus Owners were 27x more likely than the national average to buy a Lexus RX

In-market Defectors were 10x more likely than the national average to buy a Lexus RX

In-market custom competitive audience was 8x more likely than the national average to buy a Lexus RX

“This was the most successful campaign I’ve been involved in during my 20-year career.”Nada Kabbani, Practice Leader, CRM & Analytics – Team One

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Oracle Data Cloud delivers the richest understanding of consumers across both digital and traditional channels based on what they do, what they say and what they buy enabling leading brands to personalize and measure every customer interaction and maximize the value of their digital marketing.

Results like this prove the importance of leveraging a targeted audience strategy for vehicle launches.

Be sure to engage your data-driven automotive experts to identify and customize the most appropriate audience plans for your next successful launch strategy.