On this week’s episode of Auto Marketing Now, Brian Pasch talks about new marketing opportunities available via cable advertising that some dealers may not be aware of.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:
Brian Pasch: Welcome to Auto Marketing Now. On today’s show, we’re going to talk about addressable advertising on cable TV and of course we’re going to have our popular email grab bag. So what are we waiting for? Let’s get started with today’s show.
Brian Pasch: Dealers are very familiar with cable TV, whether your provider is Cox Media, Comcast, or Spectrum Reach or smaller local and regional providers. Dealers have invested in what we call linear advertising for years, but the cable companies have really transformed themselves into digital media companies and for the most part, dealers are unaware of exactly what can be done today.
Brian Pasch: So on today’s show, I want to talk about the new opportunities, new TV, addressable advertising using your local cable provider. Now let me set the stage. Dealers are being bombarded with new ways in which to reach consumers with video. So in addition to their local cable provider like Comcast or Spectrum, they’re being, well, introduced to a whole new group of players that are offering OTT, or over the top video advertising solutions. They’re telling dealers, “Look, the box is dead. Your local cable company is asleep. Everything that we have is amazing and we can do everything the cable companies can do and more on OTT.” Which is the cord cutter’s desire to be able to subscribe to a Disney premium channel or Netflix or Amazon Prime and while these OTT players are basically saying we can cover everyone, but the truth of the matter is is that OTT is an important role in video marketing, but surely not the whole story.
Brian Pasch: So today I want to talk about addressable advertising on your cable platforms. Now every company has different levels of progress when we talk about addressable advertising, and I have spent a lot of time over the last two years with the Comcast team and the Spectrum Reach team understanding their products and how dealers can use them. Unfortunately, many dealers are still buying live sports and news because that’s what their agency tells them is the most effective. But here is the truth. There are many agencies, and I’m not picking on anybody, there’s many agencies that have a cake walk when it comes to cable advertising. They don’t have to think. They just tell the dealers continue to buy live sports and morning news or evening news and you’re set. You’re reaching all the people that you need to reach, but it’s far from the truth.
Brian Pasch: You see today using set top box data, since the cable companies are also the internet provider for the homes in their market, they have a tremendous amount of data. Of course, it’s within the privacy compliant use of that data that they can actually see what the optimal viewing patterns are for auto dealers to reach their target audience. Whether it’s using Experian data, or Polk data or Urban Science data, the cable companies know, well what vehicles are in each house. They know which programming they watch and for the first time in a privacy compliant way, dealers can target and build audiences that meet their marketing goals. Instead of figuring out, well, am I supposed to buy Modern Family? Am I supposed to buy Friends reruns, or Game of Thrones or whatever your guessing is, or whatever the guessing your agency is doing. Why wouldn’t you lean on data to make smarter advertising decisions? You see, we do that for all other digital advertising except for our video strategy.
Brian Pasch: Let me step back a minute and clarify. Google tells us which keywords are worth buying. Google tells us to let them build engagement models by creating great ads, taking them to great landing pages, and then measuring what people do and Google says look, there’s so much going on, but we have an engine that’s going to self optimize itself. So based on your marketing strategies, I want to sell new BMW X5s. Based on your targeting, based on the keywords, based on the ad, based on the landing page, Google Ads is going to say, “Hey, I’m going to find the optimum mix, the optimum placement for your display, optimum placement for your pre-roll, optimum placement for your SEM”. We lean on Google and say, “Wow, it’s way too hard to do it by guessing,” yet when it comes to our video strategy where it’s like, “Yep, I’ve been buying news and live sports for years. I’m sticking with it.” I’m like, “Hello, hello.”
Brian Pasch: It’s not just linear. It’s a comprehensive approach. Dealers need to have a video everywhere strategy and even though today I’m talking about addressable video advertising through your cable providers, let me just tell you that dealers need great content. They have to stop just putting up everything that is price payment, price payment, big sale, largest inventory, family owned and operated. None of those things have much appeal to today’s shopper. They need a WIIFM, what’s in it for me, and for most consumers, it’s a fair and transparent price, respect my work online to save me time in the dealership. I want this transaction as quick as possible.
Brian Pasch: So dealers need a great brand promise, a modern brand message that they need to get out on YouTube pre-roll, and on Facebook, and in their website and email marketing. But when it comes to reaching their local market, the dealers are still in the dark about what’s possible today. So let me tell you a few things. For most dealers, now rural areas have their own unique constraints because of privacy compliant. If their population isn’t large enough, there may be some restrictions on the targeting that you can have. But it used to be you had to buy zones of cable. Today, for the most part, you can buy zip codes to be very strategic. It used to be you would have to send one message to everyone in a zone. Not anymore. If you say, “I want this message to go out to people who own a BMW or own a Mercedes,” with the right population density, your ad buy now can be reaching the people who own BMWs or Mercedes and that’s a big wow.
Brian Pasch: Also, using audience analyzing tools, using audience mapping tools we can see hey, if you want to target BMW owners and Mercedes owners with a luxury brand message, this is the best media plan. Instead of buying 10, hey, I’m going with the top 10 channels or top 10 programs, it could be 40 different content programs that absolutely maximize your reach. What type of lift? I’ve seen many different credible case studies, but wouldn’t you want a 30, 40, 50% lift in your marketing effectiveness by moving from live sports and television to a more modern digital plan? You see, dealers have been guessing and to some part the agencies that they use, they may be using them for 10, 15, 20, 30 years and nothing’s really changed.
Brian Pasch: But guess what? The whole world has changed. Cable providers today have a rich inventory of OTT offerings. They also have opportunities to advertise on an open exchange like some of the third party resellers of OTT products. But think about this. If you have linear addressable TV advertising, if you have addressable OTT, if you have a video everywhere strategy that’s built on data, do you think your video messaging would be more effective? So here’s what I want you to do, and this is a bold move. I’m going to challenge the auto industry. If you are the person at the dealership who makes the decision for buying video advertising, I’m going to ask you to schedule a demo with your local cable provider without your agency, without.
Brian Pasch: Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to call up your local Comcast rep, or your local Spectrum Reach, or your local Cox Media, or whoever your cable company is and if you don’t know your rep because maybe your agency has blocked them from talking to you, find out. It’s easy to find out and just say, “Could you please do a demo of addressable TV, your OTT offering, and how you would create a video everywhere strategy for my business objective?” That’s the challenge. If you’re the dealer principal, if you’re the general manager, if you’re the marketing manager and you’ve been pushing your media buys just to an agency, would you do this one thing? Set up a private meeting, absorb the information, get your questions answered, and then here’s what I bet. I bet half of the dealers will say, “Holy cow, I never knew this was possible. I never knew I could have this level of targeting. I never knew that these media planning tools are available right for me with my agency and my account executive from the cable company, right today.”
Brian Pasch: And for the most part, I know that better dialogue between the dealer, their agency, and the digital providers, whether it’s Google, Spectrum, Comcast, or who else, Facebook. These type of conversations have to happen because things are changing so rapidly. Agencies can fall behind. It’s tough for me to keep up with all the change in the industry, let alone any agency that’s serving both auto dealers and other clients.
Brian Pasch: So take the challenge. Would you do that? Would you make a commitment right now to call your Comcast, your Spectrum, your Cox, your local cable rep and say, “What is your capability in my market for addressable advertising for OTT video placement? And if I wanted to create a video everywhere strategy, how would you do it better than anyone else?” I think if you do it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised and if your eyes were opened, would you send me an email? Just to brian@brianpasch.com. I’d love to hear your story if your eyes were opened to the new potential on addressable video advertising through your local cable provider.
Brian Pasch: That ends today’s segment on modern video advertising strategies. And now for today’s email grab bag question. Marketing manager wrote in to ask, “Brian, what’s the best scripts or use of video pre-roll that you’ve seen lately?” This is a hard one because I see a lot of different marketing strategies, but the best that I’ve seen recently is from the Wyler Automotive Group in Ohio. Kevin Frye is the e-commerce director for the group and we’re working on a digital retailing strategy with one of the OEMs that they represent. I mentioned that my brother Glen and I are actively traveling the country helping dealers with their digital retailing strategy and what was so great and refreshing as we met with Kevin and his team is that they have a clear brand promise for their modern retail strategy called Wyler Direct. That brand promise has many elements.
Brian Pasch: I recommend today that dealers have a modern brand promise that addresses the WIIFM for consumers and that should primarily be based on saving time, being more transparent, more convenient to make the transaction shorter when they get to the dealership. The Wyler organization has done an amazing job, but what they’ve done is taken the brand promise into pieces and created six second and 15 second pre-roll and bumper ads.
Brian Pasch: What do I mean by that? Let’s just say that it’s easy. Well that’s a six second bumper or a pre-roll and it’s convenient and that’s another message in video and they can do as much as they want online to save them time in the dealership. That’s another message. So without a great modern brand promise, pre-roll is not that effective. But if you have a modern message that’s resonating with consumers and it’s not something that’s short term, meaning it’s a year long promise to attract more consumers to the brand, then pre-roll is great. By breaking up the brand promise into individual pieces and then using that on the YouTube network, on OTT strategies, on your Facebook advertising and even in your email marketing and website.
Brian Pasch: Video everywhere is really important, but pre-roll doesn’t work unless you have a modern brand promise that you can break up into pieces and that resonate, each piece, resonates with consumers to remember your brand name. Thank you so much for sending in that question and if you have a question and I use it on the show, I’ll send you a free copy of my latest book, Just Faster. It’s a modern discussion on digital retailing and the ways in which we are working to transform the auto buying experience to meet the needs of today’s shopper. Thank you so much for investing your time today in the show, and I’ll see you next week on Auto Marketing Now.
Speaker 1: Thanks for watching Auto Marketing Now with Brian Pasch. This has been a JBF Business Media production.
