Group Assignment:

Interactive/Internet marketing for the Ford Falcon XR6 50 th Anniversary Edition: Ford was one of the few companies that understood the advantages of using the internet for marketing their vehicles. Since then it has signed several contracts with the industry s leading interactive media companies. For e.g. in 2007 Ford signed an advertising commitment with Specific media for one year for their Lincoln Mercury brand. Fords Digital Marketing Manager Scott Kelly said in an interview with The Auto Channel that The Internet has brought a new dimension to our consumer marketing initiatives th rough a need to narrowly target specific customer segments and behaviours with relevant media. It is paramount for us to have the right partner to support us in our quest to maximize our efforts in this medium as we launch new campaigns . In order to successfully sell a product on the internet especially a high involvement product such as a vehicle there are several important objectives.

Objectives: 1. The advertising must create awareness of the organisation as well as the specific product: This objective is relatively clear. The plan here would be to use the advertisement to inform consumers that the product exists albeit only for a limited time in this case.

2. The advertising must generate interest : Since the car comes with features that a normal falcon doesn t for e.g. leather trim, dual zone climate control and fog lamps, we must ensure that the advertising highlights the additional features and generates interest.

3. The advertising must disseminate information clearly to the target market : The advertising should provide information about the product but not all the information about it. We want people to click on the advertisement so they can be directed to the main page containing all the information they need. 4. The advertising should create the desired image: Since the car is still essentially a family car the advertising must not take customers away from the Ford FPV s (Ford Performance Vehicles)but should target the male within the family who is attracted by all the standard extras that come with the car. Another image that we want to promote is exclusivity. This is because the car is a limited edition and people who buy it will stand out from the rest. 5. The advertising must reach the correct audience: This is a very important objective. The car costs upwards of $39,000. Thus the target market is very specific. The car must be advertised on websites where people search for information regarding new cars and also on auto blogs that review cars. If placed at the above mentioned places there should be noticeable increase in sales.

Appropriate advertising methods /Interactive Media Strategy: There are several methods that can be used to advertise the car on the internet they are: 1. Banner Advertisements 2. Sponsorships 3. Pop-ups 4. Push Technology 5. Links 6. Paid Search 7. Rich Media 8. Contextual Ads 9. Behavioural Targeting

Not all of above mentioned methods are appropriate for the advertisement of a car. The ones that are appropriate and the reasoning behind them are: 1. Paid Search: Paid search is a method of advertising in which advertisers pay only when a consumer clicks on their ad or link from a search engine page. This can be a good way to advertise since there is no fixed cost and it could work out cheaply to advertise through this method. It would also g ive good feedback as the amount paid would give a direct indication of how many people saw the advertisement and clicked on it. 2. Behavioural Targeting: This is a new form of internet advertising. The advertisement is placed on the customer s window based on their previous internet surfing and search behaviours. Computer software can determine/identify potential customers and display the advertisement to them. Using this method will be very effective in terms of the advertisement reaching the target market.

3. Rich media: Rich media would be a useful way of demonstrating the features of the new Falcon. Rich media is a broad range of interactive digital media that exhibits dynamic motion and takes advantage of enhanced sensory features like video and audio (mostly made in flash, Fords actual advertisement for the Falcon 5 th anniversary is in flash). Using Interactive banner ads and even webisodes would allow the advertisement to meet its goal of being able to disseminate information clearly t o the target market. 4. Contextual Ads: This is an efficient and effective way of assuring that the advertisement is looked at by the correct segment of the market. For e.g. an airline advertisement would be on a travel website and in our case the Falcon s advertisement would be on car sales websites along with other types of automobile related webpages such as blogs, magazine home pages etc. Overall Strategy: Our main internet strategy would be to successfully combine the above mentioned methods to create a network that would cover our target market online using rich media as the base where all our links would lead to. The paid search would not only provide us with good feedback on the effectiveness of the marketing campaign but also give us feedback about the product in general in terms of how interesting and attractive it seemed to the customers. For those customers who are not searching and need to be motivated to take interest in the product we have the behavioural targeting method. This will effectively sort out potential customers and the advertisement will be displayed accordingly. The number of advertisements generated would also give a good indication of potential buyers and their search behaviour in terms of cars.

Budgeting: The 2009 Us interactive marketing forecast reveals that advertisers fancy pay-per-click (ppc) online buys over impression based ones. 58% of display budgets today go to performance based media. They also mention that marketers love rich ad formats that respond to consumer behaviour that help lead customers toward purchase without needing them to click. Currently Rich media is 30% of the budget but is expected that companies will increase that to 45 % of 2014. For our advertising the Ford Falcon XR6 50 th Anniversary Edition online, a budget of approximately $450,000 would be required. The breakdown would be as follows Type of Advert Paid Search Behavioural Targeting Rich Media Contextual Advertisements Month 1 $50,000 $40,000 $75,000 $15,000 Month 2-4 $40,000 $25,000 $45,000 $10,000 Month 4-6 $30,000 $12,000 $20,000 $5,000 Month 6-8 Totals $20,000 $140,000 $8,000 $85,000 $10,000 $150,000 $2,500 Grand Total $70,000 $445,000

The reason in decrease in expenses over time is the fact that the car is a Limited Edition model and once the main targeted number of cars are sold the advertising can be toned down to help sell the rest.

Feedback and monitoring the interactive media campaign: There are extensive methods on obtaining feedback and to monitor an internet based marketing campaign. The ones we plan on using are: 1. Sales Indication: Based on the fact that we will be targeting a specific target market, it will be easy to determine how much the online advertising contributes once measures such as user behaviours and demographics are taken into account. 2. Surveys: Conducting surveys about the online advertisement will be able to determine the customer s attitude toward the website and the advertisement.

The sources of measurement data that we would use: 1. Interactive Advertising Bureau 2. Nielsen Net Ratings Another advantage and source of monitoring the performance of the advertisement comes from the method being used to advertise. Since the biggest two methods are pay per click and/paid search advertising and behaviour we would have access to all the statistics on the number of advertisements clicked on along with more information about the potential customer being shown the advertisement.

References:

1. Http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2007/05/14/047655.html 2. Advertising and Promotion Textbook 3. Official Ford Website http://www.ford.com.au

4. Interactive Market budgets predictions 2009 -2014 http://commetrics.com/download/18/