Luxury Car Brands Comm Analysis (H12008)

Competitive Communication Analysis H1
2008
by BBDO Moscow for Mercedes-Benz
August 2008

Title of the Presentation , CorpoS, (9Pt.), Date Slide

• Every brand tries its best to build a conversation with the
consumer via its communication
• It is necessary to make the consumer take part in this
conversation in order it would be constructive
• To succeed in this the brand should produce emotional
impact on the consumer
• To affect a person emotionally it is important to follow 5
basic principles formulated by NOP World, a British
company currently ranked no. 5 in the list of major global
market research organizations

Title of the Presentation , CorpoS, (9Pt.), Date Slide

Audi

8 Title of the Presentation , CorpoS, (9Pt.), Date Slide

Audi: keep it simple

many of the prints deployed in H1
contained headlines only which
made them simple but often bland
due to the low quality of the copy

some parts of executions were so
subtle they were hard to notice

a 3D model was used instead of
an actual car for the R8 campaign
which made it look like a toy


Audi: grab them by the eyes

some of the prints successfully used red as a
color theme or in order to accentuate the details

generally, the black color scheme
prevailed in 2008 and made Audi's
communication rather boring


Audi: avoid ambiguity

thanks to the overall simplicity of
communication the brand managed
to avoid ambiguity in most cases…

…but excessive laconism of the ads
made the copywriting ﬂaws too obvious

despite an interesting
idea the Audi Exclusive
print wasn't clear enough
due to the poor execution

Audi: if you have a good story, tell it

the stories on sport achievements were
good as well as the non-verbal
storytelling, but apart from that copies
and headlines were abstract and haughty

the S-Line package campaign
was a rare example of
appropriate multi-car story

the brand also made good use of its halo vehicle and the awards it had won

Audi: sell the beneﬁts not the product

the brand's communication was
executed in a way too haughty tone
of voice as there was just no place
for the consumer in the conversation


Audi: 2007 vs. 2008


Audi summary

•Audi tried to leverage some of the strong
points of the last year's campaigns
(consistency and high production values
as the main ones)
•In fact the brand narrowed down the
range of topics signiﬁcantly and upset the
balance of its values by concentrating on
'leadership' in the large part of this year's
communication


BMW


BMW: keep it simple

most of the prints deployed in this year were stylistically simple…

… while the campaigns started in the last year were not


BMW: grab them by the eyes

the brand did a great job in improving its eye-grabbing techniques
(especially by implementing color coding for the cars)…

…but examples of
dull communication
were also still present
…which was also extremely noticeable in case of
the prints that used large font for headlines…


BMW: avoid ambiguity

the brand managed to improve its communication it terms of avoiding ambiguity…

…except for the M5
campaign which apparently
tried to address amateur
sports car drivers on a
quasi-professional language
but did that neglectfully


BMW: if you have a good story, tell it

the brand's storytelling
was still mediocre due to
the fossil copywriting…

…stylistic issues…

…and tactical
campaigns in
general


BMW: sell the benefits not the product

the brand got rid of product attributes communication
which drastically improved its benefit delivery capabilities
and enabled the brand to speak about consumer benefits


BMW: 2007 vs. 2008


BMW summary

•BMW's communication still suffers from
mild inconsistency but the brand did a
good job in solving its main problems,
namely large amounts of attributes and
uninspiring complex visuals
•Should be considered primary competitor
in terms of communication for Mercedes-
Benz


Lexus


Lexus: keep it simple

the brand featured ridiculously overweighed
communication: too many attributes, excessive
amounts of text plus some print structure issues


Lexus: grab them by the eyes

the visuals of the brand's print
ads were simply boring…

…but b/w color coding was smartly used to differentiate petrol and hybrid engines

Lexus: avoid ambiguity

thanks to the almost complete
absence of comprehensible
messages the brand managed to
avoid ambiguity…

…but the tonality and topics of communication did not change according to
speciﬁc carlines and thus the ads promoted the brand itself

Lexus: if you have a good story, tell it

the 'attribute belts' still worked for creating the innovative
feeling of the brand (although it seemed to be a new
template but the brand continues to use the old one which
points to inconsistency or uncertainty in the minds of those
who produced the ads)

the copywriter failed to recognize the
difference between a copy for a print
ad and a brochure…

…and the headlines were placed way
too high to be readable

Lexus: sell the beneﬁts not the
product

excessive amount of product attributes killed any attempt
of successful beneﬁt communication


Lexus: 2007 vs. 2008


Lexus summary

•Lexus was still very consistent visually
and continued to maintain the innovative
feeling of the brand but its
communication is still in a desperate need
of bold messages and striking visuals


Volvo


Volvo: keep it simple

most of the prints were simplistic rather than
simple but nonetheless succeeded in confusing
with their logic


Volvo: grab them by the eyes

some of the ads still managed
to attract attention…

…but most of them were ill-structured…

…and executed in a low-key fashion

Volvo: avoid ambiguity

the brand's communication still
suffered from lots of contradictions
in visuals and copy…

… and totally incomprehensible headlines were still present

Volvo: if you have a good story, tell it

apparently some of the ads
tried to tell something…

…but
inexcusably
fossil print
execution…

…and awfully clichéd copy ruined all good intentions


Volvo: sell the beneﬁts not the
product

the brand tried to build
emotional communication…

…but did that way
too naively…

…and lacked product and consumer beneﬁt base to do that

Volvo: 2007 vs. 2008


Volvo summary

•Volvo's communication was an
undisputable champion in producing
emotional impact last year
•But the problems that were visible (low
production values and incomprehensible
stories in the ﬁrst place) started to
dominate
•As a result the brand's communication
unfortunately turned into inconsistent
mess

Inﬁniti


Inﬁniti: keep it simple

the brand's print ads were relatively
simple…

…and special headlines tried to
position each carline
emotionally…

…but the pompous copy
was sometimes hard to
read


Inﬁniti: grab them by the eyes

color coding still did its job well enough…

…but it will doubtfully last for long
as the current template implies
difficulties in storytelling and
creative diversiﬁcation


Inﬁniti: avoid ambiguity

messages were too simple
to be ambiguous…

…and the brand thankfully quit speaking
of multiple values at once…

…but the headlines were
deﬁnitely too abstract for doing
their job well


Inﬁniti: if you have a good story, tell it

the amount of copy was cut down…

…but the ads still lacked good
storytelling due to limitations
set by the template

except for the Inﬁniti G
campaign which successfully
combined its copy with the
visuals and created a strong
'Japanese premium' feeling


Infiniti: sell the benefits…

the brand tried to communicate
consumer benefits via copy…

…and successfully continued
to sell its interiors as a unique
product benefit


Inﬁniti: 2007 vs. 2008


Infiniti summary

•Infiniti has definitely improved its
communication by solving copy issues
and continued to capitalize on the color
coding which still helps to differentiate
the carlines
•But the persistent lack of drama and
one-way style of conversation keep the
brand uninviting


Mercedes-Benz

Title of the Presentation , CorpoS, (9Pt.), Date Slide48

Mercedes-Benz: keep it simple

early campaigns' messages
were simple enough…

…but the latter adaptations
were probably even too basic
to trigger emotional reaction


Mercedes-Benz: grab them by the
eyes

major campaigns' visuals were
relatively simple but tasteful…

…while some of the details could have
been executed more neatly


Mercedes-Benz: avoid ambiguity

the brand did a good job comparing to the last
year and almost completely avoided any
ambiguity in its communication…

…but the headlines sometimes looked artiﬁcial due to the adaptation issues


Mercedes-Benz: if you have a story…

the storytelling was generally
good…

…and the humor was used
rarely and aptly…

…but the ads often lacked a few
sentences to make the product speak
for itself

unfortunately minor stylistic
issues were also present


Mercedes-Benz: sell the beneﬁts…

the brand managed to communicate consumer
beneﬁts successfully in most cases


Mercedes-Benz: 2007 vs. 2008


Mercedes-Benz summary

•Mercedes-Benz deployed a lot of
adaptation campaigns which were too
laconic at times and some of the local
prints had minor execution issues
•But in spite of relatively small amount of
communication the brand has become
the most conceptually interesting in the
segment


Conclusions

•Still almost no human images are used in the
communication of premium brands except Volvo
campaigns (which doubtfully took any advantage of
those images) and the A-Class campaign (which
deﬁnitely stood out against the background), though
such images could help to amplify the emotional
impact of a message
•Thankfully the segment's communication has passed
the 'attribute period' but hasn't yet managed to
continue the conversation on the consumer beneﬁt
level except for Mercedes-Benz


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