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The Old Rules of Marketing and PR Are Ineffective in an Online World
Several times in the past few years, I have thought about buying a new car. As it is for billions of other global consumers, the web is my primary source of information when I consider a purchase. So I sat down at the computer and began poking around.
Figuring they were the natural place to begin my research, I started with some big automaker sites. That was a big mistake. I was assaulted on the home pages with a barrage of TV-style broadcast advertising. And most of the one-way messages focused on price. For example, at the end of 2012 at Ford,1 the headlines screamed, “100 Hour Sales Event Year-End Celebration. Our freshest lineup now with Big Savings.” Chrysler2 announced a similar offer: “Big Finish 2012.” And over at Chevrolet,3 they were offering the Cruze model with “0% for 60 Months.”
I'm not planning to buy a car in the next 100 hours, thank you. I may not even buy one within 100 days! I'm just kicking the virtual tires. All three of these sites assume that I'm ready to buy a car right now. But I actually just wanted to learn something. Sure, I got flash-video TV commercials, pretty pictures, and low financing offers on these sites, but little else.
I looked around for some personality on these sites and didn't find much, because the automaker websites portray their organizations as nameless, faceless corporations. In fact, the three sites I looked at are so similar that they're effectively interchangeable. ...
