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AutoTrader plays to classic TV nostalgia in mobile-heavy campaign

AutoTrader.com recently launched an integrated ad campaign featuring the original actors from ?The Dukes of Hazzard? that focuses heavily on mobile both in the creative and media buy. 

The ?Find Your Car Your Way? campaign runs across mobile search, mobile display ads and mobile video ads. Highlighting AutoTrader's mobile tools that consumers can use to personalize their car shopping experience how they want, where they want and when they want across all devices, the effort taps nostalgic affinity to help drive foot traffic.

?This is where the AutoTrader tools like being able to save a search or a specific car come in handy ? allowing car shoppers to start their car search on one of their devices and then pick it back up right where they left off on another,? said Jessica Stafford, senior director of consumer marketing at AutoTrader.com, Atlanta.

?They don?t need to re-enter criteria or keep checking up on a specific car, they can just save their progress and even get text or email alerts when a new car that fits their needs becomes available, or the prices drops on a car they?ve saved.?

Buckle up
In what is cited as their most extensive marketing effort to date, the action-packed campaign reprises the original elements of "The Dukes of Hazzard." While on the run from the county Sheriff, Bo and Luke Duke realize they are in need of a new vehicle.

Amidst jumping through barns and outrunning the Sheriff, the Duke boys utilize AutoTrader.com's new, personalized mobile shopping tools including text alerts and search and save functions to shop for and find the perfect car for their future adventures.

With more than one third of people using multiple devices to shop for a car, it?s important that consumers are equipped with tools across all devices while searching for the right car. We increasingly see trends in car shoppers using a desktop computer to shop during the week and tablets and mobile devices to shop at night and on the weekends. It?s a fluid process for shoppers who expect to be able to go from device to device during their multi-month car shopping process.

The content of ?Find Your Car Your Way? connects with consumers in a unique and memorable way, while demonstrating that AutoTrader.com can help serve both the need for a new car and a busy lifestyle.

Features such as text alerts enable shoppers to opt in to receive a text when the price has dropped on a car they're interested in. Another new car shopping tool allows consumers to save searches on one device, like a computer, and continue the same search at a later time on a mobile device.

Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Janusz Kaminski , the TV ads will be seen nearly every calendar day through a highly integrated media campaign that includes broadcast, radio, mobile-billboards, digital and social media and a public relations campaign.

Challenges for auto companies on mobile
Car companies are having a hard time using mobile, and it is not a likely channel for actually purchasing cars, however it is a crucial channel to lure consumers to the lot.

By monitoring the online shopping habits of millions of consumers, marketers can place online and mobile ads in front of shoppers quickly and precisely. A digital campaign designed to win over Toyota RAV4 shoppers for the Volkswagen Tiguan compact crossover helped boost the Tiguan?s February sales 20 percent from January 2013.

And data-driven ad targeting, in which companies gather, manipulate and repackage information from consumers? Internet activities, enables marketers to pinpoint their messages to concentrate ads in ZIP codes where online shopping traffic is heaviest, and in areas near dealerships with plenty of inventory.

In addition, the data can identify consumers whose online shopping behavior indicates interest in a vehicle but who are still deciding whether to buy.

And during the final week of last December, Dodge Dart traffic on Chrysler?s Web site more than quadrupled from earlier in the month after marketers added conquest ads to the Dart?s online campaign.

The targeted ads were reportedly 20 to 40 percent more effective in getting a response and leading a viewer to visit a Chrysler Web site or watch a video than ads that aren?t targeted.

Despite the targeting possible today, mobile and online is not a likely place to purchase a car yet.

?We?re seeing huge growth in car shoppers using their mobile devices during the shopping process. Everything from discovering the cars that may meet their needs, checking inventory and pricing in their area and eventually mapping directly to the dealership ? more and more shoppers are not only using mobile, but using it in addition to their laptop and tablet,? Ms. Stafford said.

?Since AutoTrader is a shopping tool that helps and guides car shoppers from the beginning of their car shopping journey right through to prepping them for the buying process, it?s imperative that we have the tools car shoppers need to feel great about their next car.?

Final Take
Michelle is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York