Carmakers should add more flash and trash to their web sites. Words of wisdom from CarGurus.com CEO Langley Steinart. Speaking with Advertising Age [sub], Steinart asserted that a six-month study of shoppers on his website indicated that 62 percent of pages viewed consisted of photos and videos. Based on this info, he uncategorically concludes that online shoppers "first and foremost want videos." He was shocked (shocked I tell you) to discover that car-shopping web surfers have to read automakers' websites to glean information about a car. "You have to fall in love with the car visually. Are you going to fall in love over braking power?" Regarding the science behind his study, Mr. Steinart admits he has no way of knowing his site's demographics– other than they "cut across all ages." The Guru-in-Chief also couldn't say how may visitors to his site are shopping for a vehicle (instead of reading editorials and blogs or looking for parts, accessories or automotive epiphanies). With his ability to make leaps of logic in a single bound, we reckon Steinart has a bright future in marketing research.
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Right, I want some lousy advertising video that takes 2 minutes to launch when I’m building cars online. Has anyone tried to build a new Malibu at Chevy’s site? That interface is total crap. I want videos, sure, but not from the manufacturers – I want them from TTAC (busy enough, Mr. Farago?).
A car website should be clean, logical, and not cluttered with extraneous crap that slows load times and introduces confusion. You know, like all websites EVER.
I hate hate hate these market research “revelations” that lead to more crap.
This guy can’t be serious. Come on the Web is great for something, not so good for other. A perfect example of this is the poor repersentation of automobile color choices, compare the color blue as displayed on the web, in a dealer brochure, and in person, looks different in each instance. No the web is best for facts and data not visuals.
Extra pop-ups would be really nice. Who wants facts? Videos of a “professional driver on a closed course” make me want to buy a car more than anything else. Put a trivia game up then you’ve got something. the cash would practically fall out of my pocket once I reached the dealership.
This article reinforces the fact that these days anybody and everybody is an automotive expert/consultant/pundit and people will listen and give it some attention.
Manufacturer’s web sites have evolved into the “workhorse” to convey information to a customer/prospect, and from the manufacturer web site the individual migrates to a dealer web site, and subsequently to a social media site.
There’s a demographic slice that spends time with YouTube, and cars are huge on YouTube, for the “slice” that hates reading, videos are the next best thing.
As most vehicles reach a level of product parity, are increasingly commoditised, and the prospect can jump from one manufacturer to another. The challenge is to win hearts and minds.
While the “media experience” might be good for the car buyer who wants that emotional experience it is not good for all. The first example is the car buyer who buys a car for the emotional experience (the guy who’s well off financially and already has 3 cars) now he want’s a Porsche or a Z06 because he’s going through a mid-life crisis or whatever. He wants and needs that emotional experience to justify the purchase. Now on the other end of the spectrum…Take the first-time car buyer or the average working stiff who needs a dependable ride to work so he can put food on the table for his family. His car buying experience SHOULD be based on facts, not on a multi-media this makes my pulse race experience. One shoe does not fit all but, not many get that. There’s flash and dazzle to buy an F-150. the guy who needs his truck to make a living isn’t really interested in flash and dazzle. That bald guy who wants the Porsche, he’s all about flash and dazzle.
Acquiring any vehicle at any price and for any use invloves emotions.
A prospective customer that is looking at several offerings at 2,000 down, and 299 a month for a 36 month lease will get his emotions going.
If he can get A-B-C-D-E-F for 2,000 down and 299 a month which one will make it to the short list?Which one will this individual lease for 36 months?
Manufacturer websites are invariably Shockwave Flash, Slow to Load, Hard to Navigate and Impossible to find facts, like dimensions and mileage on. They couldn’t be much worse.
Yes, finance is one aspect. I guess banks need the more flash and trash to their web sites to make the experience complete. Wow what an oversite! The heck with MPG, fuel and load capacity, engine options and what type of warranty does this manufacturer offer. Buy it because it come in electric blue and looks fast!
Advertising people won’t be happy until the internet becomes another form of television.
Most folks go to a manufacturer’s site to configure a specific model that is of interest, and read about that model.
In an age of Web 2.0 one would imagine that high speed Internet is ubiquitous.
Low rates, low payments moves the iron over HP – MPG.
Warranties, everybody has 36/60 and if it goes beyond the fine print is scary, and the dealer will sell an extended warranty on top.
I wasn’t aware flash and trash involved reading. Funny, I always thought getting the most for your low payment and low rate moves iron. At least that what the boys over at Consumer Reports say. Maybe they’d be more successful if they had flash and trash. Service after the sale usually comes into play somewhere in the decision making process. It wouldn’t be so bad but today’s advertising is full of crap, empty promises and bait & switch at the expense of the unsuspecting consumer. It’s all about the $$$ or at least the floor plan and the profit margin.
The new generation of buyers are not interested in performing or paying for anything more than the absolutely required maintenence on a vehicle.
Must be part of the Toyota influence that vehicles are like refrigerators, not supposed to break, run forever with gas and oil changes at 12,000 mile intervals.
As vehicles get better, require less service, and less warranty work, dealers will explore new ways to keep their service depts occupied.
Ah yes, the continuing effort to ‘dumb-down’ the American consumer. The last thing advertising wants is an educated consumer. Make owners manuals so thick and intimidating that they never get cracked open. Let them wonder why the oil light comes on and then charge them for a new engine because they ran the engine dry. There will be a never-ending supply of the next generation that don’t have the first clue of how or why their vehicles operate. Huge profit margins to be made on $900.00 brake jobs and free coffee while you wait(It’s also an opportunity to sell you a new vehicle). Knowledge is power, just as long as the American Consumer doesn’t have the knowledge.
timoted :
October 12th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Ah yes, the continuing effort to ‘dumb-down’ the American consumer. The last thing advertising wants is an educated consumer. Make owners manuals so thick and intimidating that they never get cracked open. Let them wonder why the oil light comes on and then charge them for a new engine because they ran the engine dry. There will be a never-ending supply of the next generation that don’t have the first clue of how or why their vehicles operate. Huge profit margins to be made on $900.00 brake jobs and free coffee while you wait(It’s also an opportunity to sell you a new vehicle). Knowledge is power, just as long as the American Consumer doesn’t have the knowledge.
Excellent!
The Internet has been disseminating automotive information for over 10 years, can someone explain how the consumer is “dumb-down” when in reality he is empowered when it comes to anything related to automotive.
The modern vehicle is an “electronic platform” and unfortunately the owners manual is thick, in a few years it will be stored on the hard drive that will be part of every vehicle and pop up on a screen.
Many vehicles no longer have a dipstick to check oil levels.
Is it possible that the new generation does not care as to how a vehicle functions, since its well informed that its the software, and the various algorithms that control most of the functions of the vehicle.
When a dealer replaces discs and pads the cost of a brake job can get up there. Many of these high performance cars that the pundits write and rave about, a brake job is in the thousands of dollars.
Steinart definitely isn’t talking about me – I head straight for the specs and pricing while avoiding pictures and video – but I guess nobody in consumer-based marketing is aiming to sell to engineers; they know we make our own decisions anyway. I don’t watch television commercials (thank you PVR!) and I don’t plan on watching internet commercials either.
That said, non-intrusive links to videos aren’t going to bother me and could help their marketing.
Toyota and Kia, for two, have good, informative websites without a lot of “shock and awe.”
Just sayin’
About those thick owner’s manuals, blame it on those ever-increasing need for more and more “features.” The Scion xD manual is pretty thin; that’s because the car isn’t available with all the fancy bells and whistles so many people seem to want these days. “Swivel ‘n go,” anyone? Do want nav with that? Ooh, gotta have sat radio too.
But I will give BMW some kudos on this front. Despite these cars’ complexity (iDrive and all), their manuals have been edited intelligently, without repeating the same warnings over and over, for example.
You can get a nav system (and sat radio, for that matter) in a Scion xD, 210delray. In fact, I believe it’s the first and only subcompact to offer a nav in the US.
Ok, I stand corrected on the xD. But clearly other features have to be lacking, such as programmable door locks. Anything that requires a modicum of explanation will require several pages in the manual.
The ad agency sells it services to the executive suite, not the guy shopping for new wheels. So ads are multi-media extravaganzas, designed to wow and entertain the Big Cigars who approve ad campaign budgets. The Big Cigars are a passive audience, like people in a movie theatre; they’re never going to have to navigate their way through a cluttered mess. Therefore, “websites are invariably Shockwave Flash, Slow to Load, Hard to Navigate and Impossible to find facts, like dimensions and mileage on.”
Once I sat in on an ad agency’s presentation to a Board. The agency was proposing a new website design. The thing was absolutely jammed with mini-movies, pop-ups and rollover displays, irrelevant features (yes, it included an interactive game), confusing graphics and menus requiring deeper drilling than an offshore oil well. But the Board really liked all the color and motion. It was like watching a special effects laden movie–especially since the pitch took place in a room with state of the art big-screen and sound equipment. The proposal was approved unanimously.
After the meeting I told the computer techie I was surprised that the site’s complicated features had worked so smoothly and quickly. He explained he actually wasn’t downloading data from an Internet address; the “web” pages went directly from his computer’s hard drive to the projector. No lag!
I could only shake my head. The demonstration took place at a time when the lion’s share of home computers had only dial-up Internet connection.
Again that brings up the point that most people don’t want flash and dazzle especially if they have to wait for it to load. Give’em facts. Leave out the flash. A educated consumer is the best consumer. He or she won’t ask for anything less than what is reasonable. Maybe someday corporate big-wigs and those in advertising will get it. All though I won’t hold my breath.
If the majority of people have high speed / broadband Internet connections, at home and work. Download speed is a moot point.
TTAC will feature videos in the near future. Will you folks stop visiting and commenting because you can’t download and watch videos?
Steinart has the theme right, if not the details. Generally, web sites of the automakers are informationally biased to the left-brain-led rational buyer, which may be the minority prospect type. But the web made its bones as an information medium and it is only now beginning to support sufficient rich media techniques to prioritize user engagement. The emotional/intuitive buyer may check the facts but won’t be compelled by them. That prospect must be immersed in the car. That person lives experientially. Steinart’s 62% are consuming video and image content because they are trying to reach through the internet to touch, smell, hear and see the car. And they are frustrated by the digital media experiences available to them.
Video may be the least of it, particularly if it isn’t HD. Video is relatively difficult to plan and execute. The viewer demands more creativity from motion. It’s much less important to put the shopper on the sidelines of the ‘Ring or Lime Rock than it is to put the shopper *in* the car, viscerally. On today’s sites, photos are too small and low-resolution to make the car vivid to the shopper. The textures of the interior, the visual depth, the materials mix, are not made palpable. Paint colors are poorly represented. As you’re building your car you generally see changes on a tiny image, which forfeits another opportunity to get the shopper emotionally hooked. These high-engagement media techniques might be video, Flash, high-resolution photography, or much better-composed prose. For the efficiency-minded shopper, there should always be a lean and clean way to work through the information content. But UI can be rich and reasonably undemanding of bandwidth if Ajax and other newer programming techniques are adopted.
Before a pixel is illuminated; before a line of DHTML is tapped out, the manufacturers have to get their stories right, for maker, for vehicle, for the target buyer. They need better Information Architects and UI architects, along with more talented UI designers for the surface layer of engagement and efficiency.
The TTAC crowd is probably composed disproportionately of data-driven buyers, relative to the population at large. Good web design doesn’t have to alienate the data-driven shopper to amp up the user-engagement and emotion marketing for what has long been a fundamentally emotional purchase.
Phil
With the Internet the automotive retail process has migrated online, and empowered the consumer, most of the sales information that resided in a showroom is now disseminated online.
Many dealers are facilitating the entire process online, and use the actual brick and mortar to finalise a transaction, and deliver a vehicle.
The initial hunting and gathering of information starts online, and this increases on a yearly basis. From a comveninece perspective its opened 24/7/365 at the consumers convenience.
Technology has empowered/facilitated every aspect of the automotive industry. A percentage of consumers are not fully empowering themselves to take advantage of all this technology, make his life easier, and save money by using less physical resources. In many instances the technology is all there, the mind set in not there to take advantage of the technology.
Another percentage of consumers is seeking more from the technology, and its not there yet. Car configurators by now are old news, payment calculators, lease calculators, used vehicle values its all readely available online, and old news. You have to wonder why many still struggle with the dealer process.
The technology is there to walk into to a dealer and be greeted http://www.cafesonique.com/launch/flash.php in some ways similar to Second Life.
You walk into a dealer through your computer, you are greeted, and if you wish you are immediately connected to a retail consultant from the comfort of where you are. The technology and resources are probably all available, and its becoming a question of when will it happen.
If dealers are pressured by manufacturers to invest millions in glass palaces, there is no motivation to replace the brick and mortar glass palace by a “virtual glass palace”.
Lets not even talk about built to order, with a short delivery time.
Exactly how much information does one extract from a “video of a blonde driving the make/model/year of a particular vehicle” that the consumer is interested in? Do you get all the information you need or do get the impulse to buy because of the video. Do you get information from some crappy flash or pop-up of your car on a closed course do not attempt? I laugh at every one of those stupid videos because it’s soul purpose is to have you impulse buy. (he looks like he’s having fun, I want the fun too) The sad part is it forces sales to those who normally wouldn’t buy the vehicle and in 18 months the car ends up getting repossessed. Ask your local bank how many time they’ve seen that happen. I guess at that point it shouldn’t matter since it’s bank’s issue and not the dealership or the mfg’s problem anymore.
Many people buy the wrong vehicle because of impulse or emotional buys. They end up buying too much car or more car than they can afford and get in over their head. Does this sound familiar? The mortgage industry is learning their lesson right now. Fly-by-night mortage companies popped up like lawn thistle and look whats happened to them and their customers thanks to flash and dazzle-get’em in the door and out tatics. Insane loans that never should have been made. Instead of looking at the practicality of a purchase. Buying the right vehicle for the customer based on information. Call it a “transportation consultant” approach. Oh wait but then again that doesn’t move iron, its the low payment.
As vehicles reach parity, have the same features, the same options for a specific market segment, and increasingly become commoditised. Comparing features tells the same story to a prospective customer.
In entry level luxury as an example, a C Class, 3 Series, A4, IS, CTS, G35 in essence all have the same features, the same power levels, the same warranties. Its not major differences, its nuances and how its presented to the market, potential customers.
The make it more competitive, every manufacturer is on a mission to steal business from the other with financial incentives. Even those are similar, so much down, such a rate, and so on.
You cannot compare automotive financing to mortgages, automotive financing is more transparent.
Even a new model has an “upside” of only 12 to 18 months in the market, and if it does not win hearts and minds there is no “upside”.
Manufacturers puposely come out with models to interfere with another manufacturer, launch models at the same time.
Toyota builds a plant in Texas for the Tundra, on the TV ads this pick up is incredible, the components are bigger, better, will last longer than the competition, its all there, its a better truck. Anyone in the market for a pick up should have immediately run to a Toyota dealer to get this truck with bigger components, its really a 3/4 ton camouflaged as a 1/2 ton at the price of a 1/2 ton, its an increadible deal, and value.
timoted: I agreee with about 95% of what you have presented here.
AGR: After reading through this entire thing you have contradicted yourself on more than one occasion.
To say that automotive financing is more transparent does not add up in the context of this discussion. I believe timoted’s point being that while there certainly are differences in autombile lending when compared to home lending there are certainly lessons to be learned. Specifically, if you’ve paid any attention to the media. The media has repeatedly shown that people did not fully understand what they were getting into when they signed on the bottom line. Most cases it was a scenario with those with less than perfect credit getting a home that was more house than they bargained for. Teased by the introductory rate and not understanding what would happen in the future. Yes, payment does move anything but, that’s where AGR’s argument starts to fall apart.
One of the key factors in a strong economy is for consumers to have confidence in the economy. They are more likely to have confidence if they walk away knowing that they got a good product at a fair price based on the information presented to them in a clear and concise manner. If you don’t believe me ask anyone who has leased a vehicle for 60 or even 72 months and has tried to get out of their lease early.
I think timoted’s statement that knowledge is power is very true. Today most manufacturer’s want their customers to be educated however, it usually is diluted by executives and advertising agencies. While that rings true in almost all consumer products, it is almost always enhanced when it comes to major purchases.
Timoted – I bet I can find you working hard for a consumer group. One who sticks up for the underdog. I say good for you!
AGR – There seems to be a lot of conjecture in your argument. My only guess for you is that I would find you at a used car lot wearing a cheap polyester suit. Nobody likes to feel like they’ve been taken advantage of especially when it comes to a major purchase such as a home or vehicle. Even you AGR.
schempe, its a great big world and everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Anyone that is not comfortable executing financial paperwork at any dealer should simply step back. A 60 or 72 month lease on a vehicle is ridiculous from the outset, does not make sense, and should not make sense to anyone.
The “polyester suits” is old and overused. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, and your perspective.