Japanese automakers advertise economically

Daihatsu uses its advertising budget most efficiently for the German car market, as the new car buyer study “New Car Monitor” by the Frankfurt Institute for Brand Control showed. Although the Japanese company spent 70 percent less money on advertising last year than it did in 2007, advertising awareness only fell by two percent to the current 16 percent.

“With the zero tariff weeks, Daihatsu has covered customer needs surprisingly well. The campaign ran mainly through the print media, which enabled the advertising budget to be kept low, ”says Isabelle Morschhäuser from Brand Control. According to the results of the study, which compares advertising success and financial expenditure, the vehicle manufacturer only spent 4.6 million euros on advertising in 2008 instead of 14.4 million euros as in the previous year. The fact that the target group’s memory of the advertising remained almost at the level of 2007 is due to the fact that Daihatsu picked up on developments such as rising gasoline prices and attracted a lot of attention with its promises of “free refueling” and “free leasing”.

The winners also include Nissan and Skoda, which took second and third place in the study. Nissan has reduced the advertising costs from 72.9 to 51.8 million euros and only lost two percentage points in the advertising reminders. In contrast, Skoda took 19 million euros in hand and thus achieved the same memorable value as in 2007. Among the German automobile brands, the advertising of BMW was the most efficient. With 79 million euros in advertising expenditure, 70 percent advertising recall was achieved. Competitor Audi has invested around 134 million euros for the same 70 percent advertising reminders. Only the budgets of Mercedes and Volkswagen were even higher.

www.brandcontrol.com