Even with the home court advantage, U.S. automakers had a hard time keeping up with their Japanese counterparts when it came to reaching U.S. consumers, according to the results of a research report released by Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI), a provider of data to media companies and advertisers that links media exposure to consumer behavior.
The research, which was collected by monitoring actual individual ad exposure in six key markets, also shows that marketers advertising on multiple platforms need to look at combined data, in this case television and radio, to get a true assessment of the effectiveness of their campaigns.
Japanese auto manufacturers reached on average 22% more audience than U.S. automakers and 27% more than European manufacturers. The study was based on the number of times car ads were seen by consumers in New York, Houston, Denver, Chicago, LA and Miami on both television and radio during August-October 2007.
The automaker with the greatest number of overall net impressions on both radio and television was Honda, which garnered 28% more reach than the average of all the other automakers combined. Mazda had the most television net impressions at 37% above the average and BMW was an overwhelming leader in radio with 239% more impressions than the average.
When it came to effectively using a cross-platform strategy, Ford had the highest percentage increase in their overall unique audience when adding a second medium, in this instance radio. Ford showed a 37% increase in their overall reach when the number of radio impressions were factored into their TV numbers.
"Looking at just radio, or just television, does not give advertisers a true sense of their campaign’s performance," said Amanda Welsh, head of research for IMMI. "Rather than looking at isolated data, which will yield an incomplete picture, marketers need to implement a cross-platform measurement strategy to evaluate the effectiveness of campaigns that are on multiple platforms."
