Honda Moves Up In Automotive Advocay Top 10

Written by Igor Beuker on July 17th, 2008 | no comments

Honda is leaving Toyota in the dust, when it comes to advocacy. Consumer advocacy for Honda has grown more than 38% in the past year, while the same metric has fallen 3% for Toyota.

Attributes the success of certain auto brands to a renewed focus on improving the vehicles they put on the market -something that gets attention from consumers and ultimately ups positive word of mouth, according to David Rabjohns in Advertising Age.

In the Automotive Advocacy Top 10, Acura leads, second is Hyundai and Honda moved up to the third place. Honda and Hyundai’s success in getting advocates foreshadowed recent sales success; the two companies posted a 31.9% and 26.3% gain in May car sales, respectively.

Will brands and traditional agencies finally learn that there is more than shouting ads that reach consumers? Will CMO’s now embrace social media marketing, word-of-mouth consultancy, conversational (buzz) tracking and brand ambassadors programs?

I hope this new wake-up call makes it possible for CMO’s to switch their mindset, so they understand why they are in huge need of interaction agencies or social media marketing agencies. Maybe then they will start listening to social influentials and consumers?

But then CMO’s will need to take the steering wheel back in their hands. Because listening ideas will probably not come from their media agencies or film loving advertising agencies: since their business models are based on ‘cheap reach’ and ‘award winning’ commercials?

Listening to consumer conversations is the first step into: better products, better service, higher sales, eCRM, loyal customers and brand likability. Maybe the smart social media marketing strategy of Jeep can help you get your brand into the right lane?

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