Last week we delivered at the Chicago Auto Show a presentation on the impact of blogs on the automotive shopping process.  I've included some highlights below - click here to download the full presentation. In order for the industry to recover, we must bring qualified prospects back to purchase.  While changing ... Read More »

Just when it seemed all automotive manufacturers had completely embraced Flash for their brand Web sites, Acura recently launched a redesigned site that is almost entirely HTML.  Flash is not required anywhere on the site except for the experience sections (which are holdovers from the old site).  The new site ... Read More »

Today the landscape for automotive online marketing is changing with the emergence of J.D. Power and Associates and Compete, Inc.’s new Online Media Behavior (OMB) product.  This new tool will release in March and serve automotive OEM media planners and publishers alike by allowing them to closely target the ... Read More »

The growth in online comments and traditional word of mouth is increasingly important in today’s automotive marketing industry as consumer and professional blogs are greatly expanding the voice each person has in their niche(s) of interest.  Consumers listen to and trust their peers for reviews on products ... Read More »

Online Automotive Review may not have a Facebook profile, but I can still make a “25 Random Things” list for it.  Among the sources used were: 2008 J.D. Power and Associates New Autoshopper.com Study (NAS)
2008 J.D. Power and Associates Used Autoshopper.com Study (UAS)
2008 J.D. Power and ... Read More »

One of the consistent findings from our Manufacturer Website Evaluation Study (MWES) is that font sizes could always be bigger.  Most people can read 12-point Times in a high-contrast text block, but adding in colors and other visual distractions can make it much harder.  Some automotive manufacturers exacerbate ... Read More »

As various forms of Internet media become more available and high-speed connections become the standard, it is important for manufacturers to use caution when integrating various mediums throughout their sites. Reckless use of video, in particular, can wreak havoc on a site and can very quickly drive shoppers away. ... Read More »

In recent years, consumer usage of newspaper automotive classifieds has plummeted.  As recently as 2005, 12% of new-vehicle shoppers and 8% of used-vehicle shoppers reported finding their vehicle via newspaper classifieds.  By 2008, these figures were down to 2.8% and 3.5% respectively.
  At the same ... Read More »

There haven’t been any big, news-making developments recently in the world of search, so I thought it worthwhile to check in.  Data from comScore shows that Google continues to dominate, Yahoo still has a substantial presence, and Ask.com and AOL are holding on to increasingly smaller shares.
While it ... Read More »

The 2009 Manufacturer Web Site Evaluation StudySM (MWES)—Wave 1 released today and Honda ranks highest among automotive manufacturer Web sites for usefulness in new-vehicle shopping. The semi-annual study measures the usefulness of automotive manufacturer Web sites during the new-vehicle shopping process. New-vehicle ... Read More »