I found this study about how consumers shop for cars from the AutoTrader Dealer Learning Center www.weworkforyou.com. Nearly a quarter of all new- and used-car buyers use multiple devices to shop. Indeed, there's a correlation between everyday device usage and shopping behavior, and it's a trend that's becoming a way of life. In fact, AutoTrader.com expects that 52% of all car shopping will be done on multiple devices within the next 5 years.This study reveals how consumers use their devices, and what you can do to ensure that you're delivering the kind of shopping experience they expect.

Click below to see the Entire Study:

AutoTrader.com Multi-Device Car Shopping Study: How Consumers Shop for Cars

Yume and IPG Media Lab just released a really interesting study regarding how viewers engage with online video ads differently than they do with television ads. To draw their conclusions, they took measurements of facial expressions, eye movement and placement and biometrics to determine the interaction and engagement levels of both TV and online video...and the winner is...

Do Viewers Interact With Online Video Ads Differently From TV?

First thing first: the what, why, and how. They set out to answer three major questions in their research:

SEE ALSO: Attention, Excitement and Video Ad Recall Levels are Screen Dependent?

Do people pay attention to online video differently than they do when watching TV?

If they are different, should an online video ad impression be valued the same way that TV ads are?

What are the quantitative and qualitative differences between TV watching and online video?

It seems that these guys really got it because their basic assumptions included the fact that a controlled environment adds bias to the behavior. Ad avoidance is normal; an ad on-screen doesn't mean a view. How people watch is as important (or more) than what.

Now this was a very limited study, there were only 48 participants who were chosen based on demographic diversity and their viewing of online and traditional TV.

They they showed them an hour of video and did facial tracking analysis and some biometric analysis.

That's as technical as I'll get for you. Let's get to the results!

Online Video Ad Recall Vs. TV: The Results!

It seems that short attention spans and instant gratification needs have teamed up in Americans to show that we can't just watch most shows for their entire length. Or maybe the content of the shows just isn't totally engrossing and so we fill the attention gap with other media. Our mobile phones are the biggest distraction in regards to ad avoidance with 60.4% of subjects using it and DVRs play a big part of that as well with 45.8% using that. Having a laptop in the room is also a major distraction for TV viewers.

For online media, the phone still reigns supreme but surprisingly, 27% of the subjects had no distractions while online. One might say that online video content is far more engaging, or it could have been a fluke (remember, only 48 subjects in the test).

Using a DVR often brought attention levels up, but that was mainly to actively avoid commercials by skipping over them.

Overall, online ad retention and recall were far higher for online than they were for TV. This is mostly because of the DVR-memory gap effect (my term) where people are actively avoiding ads with the DVR, after all, that's half the reason to use one right?

Catch programs you might miss and skip the ads.

This graph is really quite strange if you think about it and shows that DVR memory gap effect. For TV the unremembered ads is increased by the DVR and yet, unaided ad recall is about the same level while aided ad recall is lower than both. It almost seems counter-intuitive. Perhaps what's happening is that people are actually seeing the ad images while DVR ad-skipping and because they weren't completely bored, as they didn't have to sit through the whole ad, they remembered a single frame with branding on it which flashed by as they were fast forwarding.

The New TV Ad Format?

That could be something really interesting to investigate more thoroughly. I've noticed a lot of remotes don't have ad-skip buttons so that means if you're actively ad-skipping you're going to push the FF button until you see a frame of the show you're watching and then hit play.

What if advertisers were to know exactly how many frames were generally skipped, how often a frame showed up on screen and how often a viewer stopped short? Those would then be the ideal places to stick big, branded, static images because then those frames would be seen, even somewhat passively, by the viewers and could be far more effective than fancy live-action ads which don't show the brand much of the time.

This might be the new way to start designing ads for TV.

The Big Win for Online Video Ads

For the online video crowd, i.e. us, this is far easier to deal with. Anytime a video is fast-forwarded over an ad or where an ad would be placed, the ad simply plays when the viewer stops scrubbing or presses play. I've seen this on places like Hulu, who actually show you where the ad will be. Since Hulu is giving me the content free, I don't even bother skipping the ads (see how tolerant I am sometimes).

Here are the big results from the survey if you ask me: online ad recall was twice as high as TV ad recall, both aided and unaided. Check out the chart below.

Perhaps that's the anti-DVR effect. You generally can't get past the ads online whether you're scrubbing or fast forwarding, so it means you'll see them more often. However, I think that the ads also need to still maintain both a short length (15 seconds) or be entertaining and not too frequent.

Because the other thing this research shows is just how easy we, as online video viewers, might simply start multi-tasking far more and mentally blocking out the ads. So advertisers...be warned.

Source: Video Advertising Recall 2X Higher Than TV, According to Study http://www.reelseo.com/tv-online-video-attention-levels/#ixzz2giggkbFw 
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2011 Case Study: Bonfire Helps an Unlikely Industry Get Social

Company: Beaverton Auto Group

Campaign Length: Nine Months

Result: Facebook interactions increased 1,021%, Facebook fans increased 172%, and Facebook cost-per-fan decreased 38.2% (averages)

The Challenge

Beaverton Auto Group consists of three auto dealerships: Beaverton Nissan, Beaverton Hyundai, and Damerow Ford. A locally owned and operated company, Beaverton Auto Group was quick to realize and understand the dramatic shift to social media in an industry that has relied heavily on traditional mediums.

Each of the three brands at hand have experienced their own significant challenges during the recession and natural disasters in Japan, which caused difficulty in maintaining a consistent supply of inventory. Bonfire was appointed to launch the company into the social space to build brand awareness, increase web traffic, nurture their communities, and ultimately drive sales.

The Customer Experience

Auto dealerships aren’t exactly known for fantastic customer service, and many customers dread stepping onto the lot. So instead of simply telling everyone how great their customer service is, weshowed them by displaying photos of happy customers next to their brand new cars. Not only did this provide an avenue to build trust among potential customers, but it also helped us grow a relevant fan base—one filled with existing customers and not random visitors who want nothing to do with the product. The pictures quickly became a hit, with customers often asking for their pictures to be taken before the conclusion of the sale and showing gratitude in the comments.

We also provided exceptional customer service via social channels, further contributing to our highly interactive communities.

Incentives

One of the most significant shifts in social media in 2011 was the expectation of the consumer to be rewarded for connecting with brands online. Knowing this was a key to success, we wanted to do something fun to reward our fan base but also add value and generate business for our client.

We achieved this in several ways throughout the campaign, the first of which was exclusive service specials for Facebook fans. To make this process ultra-convenient for the customer, we enabled them to download and print the coupons right from Facebook vs. making them click through to another site. We also ran an iPad 2 Giveaway as part of our “fan giveaway” value proposition.

Facebook Advertising

Most auto dealerships use their Facebook pages exclusively to advertise. Not our clients.

We advertise where it was meant to be—using Facebook ads. They allowed us to extend our campaign reach significantly while allocating our budget only to our target demographics. Throughout the campaign, the ads were the highest generator of new fan growth than any other medium.

The Results

A well-executed strategy, optimized tactics, and a focus on valuable content yielded phenomenal results over our nine month period from February–October 2011. In fact, Beaverton Hyundai now has more Facebook fans than any Hyundai dealership in the nation.

Beaverton Nissan

Facebook Fans: +183.2%

Facebook Interactions: +668.4%

Facebook Advertising Cost-Per-Fan: -53.7%

Beaverton Hyundai

Facebook Fans: +260.5%

Facebook Interactions: +1,480.6%

Facebook Advertising Cost-Per-Fan: -62.4%

Damerow Ford

Facebook Fans: +73.4%

Facebook Interactions: +914.8%

Facebook Advertising Cost-Per-Fan: +1.4%

Source - http://bonfiresocialmedia.com/2011-case-study-bonfire-helps-an-unlikely-industry-get-social/

Americans viewed more than 11 billion video ads in June, representing a 9.2% increase from May’s previous high of roughly 10.1 billion views, per July 2012 comScore VideoMetrix data. To put the rise of video ad impressions this year in perspective, June’s 11 billion views is almost double the 5.6 billion views from January of this year, though January had seen a rather substantial drop from the previous month’s 7.1 billion.In June, video ads accounted for 25% of all videos viewed, up almost 16% from 21.6% in May. Ads accounted for 2% of time spent viewing video online, compared to 1.9% in May.

Meanwhile, in June, each of the top 5 video ad properties delivered more than 1 billion video ads, led by Google Sites (1.41 billion), closely followed by BrightRoll Video Network (1.39 billion), and Hulu (1.33 billion). Rounding out the top 5 were Adap.tv (1.15 billion) and TubeMogul Video Ad Platform (1.04 billion).

Time spent watching video ads totaled 4.6 billion minutes during the month, up from 4.5 billion in May. BrightRoll Video Network delivered the highest duration of video ads at 805 million minutes.

Video ads reached 53% of the total US population an average of 68 times during the month, up from 64 in May. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 52, while ESPN delivered an average of 34 ads per viewer.

Facebook Grows Video Audience; Vimeo Cracks Top 10

Among the top 10 US online video properties in June, Facebook reported strong month-over-month unique viewer performance gains, rising almost 11% to 49 million, and in the process leapfrogging Microsoft and Viacom into the 3rd spot. Yahoo maintained its second ranking, with close to 51.5 million viewers, but dropped 11% of its viewers. Whereas in May, Yahoo’s audience was roughly 13.5 million larger than Facebook’s, by June, that gap had been whittled down to just 2.5 million.

Google remained the top online video property once again, with about 154.5 million viewers, up close to 2% from 151.7 million the prior month. VEVO dropped a slot to the 4th ranking in June (46.2 million), while Viacom Digital moved up from the 7th spot to enter the top 5 with 38.9 million viewers. Vimeo entered the top 10 for the first time, in the 10th spot, with 21.4 million viewers, while News Distribution Network and Hulu dropped out of the top 10 rankings.

Google again demonstrated the highest viewer engagement, with an average of roughly 7.7 hours per viewer.

Top 5 YouTube Partner Rankings Intact

The June 2012 YouTube partner data shows that video music channels VEVO (roughly 45.1 million viewers) and Warner Music (26.1 million viewers) maintained the top two positions. Gaming channel Machinima ranked third with 23.6 million viewers, relatively unchanged from May. Maker Studios (21.2 million) and FullScreen (16.2 million) both maintained their rankings from the previous month.

Among the top 10 partners, Machinima displayed the highest engagement again, at 76 minutes per viewer, ahead of VEVO, at 50 minutes per viewer. VEVO streamed the most videos (567 million), followed by Machinima (447 million).

Other Findings:

• 84.8% of the US internet audience viewed online video in June, up slightly from 84.5% in May.
• The duration of the average online content video was 6.8 minutes, up from 6.5 minutes in May, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes, unchanged from the previous month.
• More than 180 million US internet users watched online video content in June for an average of 20.64 hours per viewer.
• The total US internet audience engaged in 33 billion video views, down from 36.6 million in May.

Source - http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/online-video-ad-views-continue-to-reach-new-heights-22712/

http://www.dealersynergy.com 

This was a case study I recently posted on my blog: Automotive Marketing . We ran this study on Dealer Refresh for 2 months. Below you will see the results before adding Car Chat 24 and after. Anyone on Automotiveinternetsales.com that would be interested in a 30 day free trial, feel free to reach out.