Automakers now account for $17 billion or 25% of US advertising spending — an increase in ad spending of 1,378% over the past 20 years. So how much bang was that expanding buck buying? How about a corresponding not-so-equitable increase in vehicle sales of 17%. Nissan's VP of marketing Jan Thompson drops what's becoming a familiar pot-calling-kettle-black refrain from auto ad execs about both advertising spending and the inability to correctly focus spending on "new-media timidity." However, hypocrisy has hit an all-time high on this one. Thompson's blast on ad-spending is that the average ad spend per vehicle in the industry is $1,000 a car. What's Nissan at? $950 a car. WOW Jan, that's amazing — great job cutting that ad spend. As one of us said to the other this morning, "c'mon! 50 bucks! That's lunch for one in SoCal."
And Nissan's about as "bold" as Ford — advertising in Google, Yahoo and MSN. Call us back when you start advertising in real new-media sites. Snag a load of Facebook...or even...dare we speak such hearsay...Jalopnik!
Top Nissan Exec Blasts Industry for New-Media Timidity [AdAge]
Related:
More Ad Watch [internal]