Northern California Honda Dealers
The Challenge
In 2006, I was the Account Director at Baker Street Advertising. Our new client, the 55 Honda dealers in Northern California and the Central Valley were losing market share to, and being significantly outspent by, their rival Toyota dealers.
How could we create a regionally relevant market position that grew market share, stayed true to the Honda Brand, and accommodated for regional variances?
The Solution
The first step was analyzing Polk data, which measures vehicle registrations by model and segment in by market. That analysis revealed some key trends in Northern California:
Fuel efficient Small and Mid-Size vehicle segments were growing at a pace much faster than the market as a whole
Concurrently, truck and SUV segments were underperforming the market
The Toyota Prius was the number 1 selling vehicle in San Francisco, with 4% market share, a staggering number for a specific model. For reference, some manufacturers (entire vehicle lines) don’t have 4% market share.
At this point, a key strategic decision had to be made: either focus advertising efforts to help stimulate sales growth in segments that were struggling, or spend into the regional industry trend. We chose the latter.
The second step was to conduct consumer research to understand what truly drove consumers’ vehicle purchase decision. Not surprisingly, for Northern California, fuel economy and environmental impact were key contributors. But digging deeper, we learned that consumers only wanted to be environmentally conscious when it didn’t impact their other preferences. There was a limit to what they were willing to sacrifice.
Leveraging the both the Polk data and the consumer insights, we created and produced the “Think Green. Think Honda.” campaign, focusing on Honda’s small and midsize vehicles: the Honda Civic and The Honda Accord. For more rural markets, with higher Hispanic populations and an increased focus on trucks and SUVs, we broadened the campaign to appeal with an increased Spanish language initiatives and focused on the fuel efficiencies of Honda’s SUV lineup, while remaining true to the confines of the “Green” messaging.
The key to ensuring the success of the campaign was educating the dealer population on the umbrella strategy, articulating why it was relevant to their specific geographic area, as well as their sales team. We created a newsletter that was the primary communication tool for sharing market-specific communication strategies, partnered with American Honda to created sales training collateral within the context of the campaign, shared media plans for dealers to piggyback, thus amplifying the effectiveness of their buy, and produced engaging point of purchase merchandising. This combination of efforts helped get buy-in across the network, from owners to the salespeople on the floor.
The Results
The results were impressive. Over the first two years of the campaign, Honda’s market share increased in 22 of the 24 months, across all markets, while still being outspent by Toyota. Additionally, the Honda Civic overtook the Toyota Prius as the number 1 selling vehicle in the San Francisco Bay Area.