Life & Style | Motoring
Audi targets youth with social media
This video, dubbed The Hostage is just one of many videos made by Audi that can be found on YouTube.com, the popular video sharing website. In the six months it has been online, it has been viewed over 380,000 times.
- By Scott Shuey, Chief Reporter
- Published: 22:52 July 1, 2009
- Peter Schwarzenbauer believes car manufacturers have to adjust to the new way of life in the age of social networking to target younger customers.
- Image Credit: Supplied picture
Dubai: A criminal is faced with a dilemma. While being pursued by an armed guard, he comes across a young woman getting out of her car in a parking garage.
Seeing an opportunity, the crook tells the guard if he doesn't drop his gun, he will shoot & the car, an Audi R8. The guard of course lets him go.
This video, dubbed The Hostage is just one of many videos made by Audi that can be found on YouTube.com, the popular video sharing website. In the six months it has been online, it has been viewed over 380,000 times.
The Hostage is just one example of Audi's strategy for marketing via social networks. It is almost a necessity since Audi customers tend to be younger across the board, according to Peter Schwarzenbauer, a member of Audi's Board of Management and head of marketing and sales, who was in Dubai yesterday.
"We, as car manufacturers, have to adjust to this new way of life," he said. "So you will see us shifting even more towards the web."
According to Schwarzenbauer, the company is currently placing all of its tele-vision ads on YouTube, as well as producing original content for the web, opening both international and regional pages on prominent social networking sites such as Facebook.com and Twitter.com.
The image that Audi wants to create is that "every generation has a vehicle" with the not-so-subtle statement that Audi should be this generation's.
While Schwarzenbauer says Audi isn't discussing it directly, there is an underlying message that competing brands like BMW and Mercedes-Benz are parents' brands.
The transition away from television, radio and print to the online world hasn't always been easy, he said.
"I think we are still in the learning space to be honest & Some things are going well and some things we have to [get] adjusted [to]. But what we can see is whenever we put an interesting video - one that is not commercial, it's just interesting content - this is where we get a lot of traction and a lot of download. And the beauty of this thing is that you can measure it every day.
"You can measure how many times someone views a video, but you can't control what people say about it however," Schwarzenbauer said. "That's a big change, because companies are used to being in control of their messages."
"People talk about your brand [online]. They comment on everything," he said. "It's something we in the automotive [industry] still have to learn, but this is what's happening. You can't stop it. You either live with it and try to communicate actively in the world or you're out."
Out is a situation that a number of automobile manufacturers have found themselves in recently, due to the global recession, not their inability to transition to social network.
Audi, however, in 2008 had its 13th consecutive record year of growth. For the first time the company sold one million cars, with 7,732 of those in the Middle East.
"This was an extremely important milestone for us, because we have a strategic plan called Route 15 which defines where we want to be as a company - as a brand - in 2015," Schwarzenbauer said.
Audi may not see a 14th year however. Schwarzenbauer admits the company has also been hit by the global recession. In the first five months of 2009, Audi was down 12 per cent compared to the same period in the 2008, while global car market is down 22 per cent, he said.
The company saw revenue of 34 billion euros last year, its highest ever.
"We are affected by the crisis but we are doing extremely well compared to our main competitors."
Conservative growth strategies have also helped the company set up aggressive spending.
Audi has invested $2.8 billion a year in new products in the last seven years and plans to continue to do so until 2015.
"We invested a lot of money in new products and even in a crisis new, attractive products help you a lot," he said. "We haven't done too many crazy things to push volume."
The company is not borrowing the money either, but financing the investment through their own revenue streams, which Schwarzenbauer said, shows that Audi is an extremely healthy company financially.
"We think this is the right moment - investing in your future when you're in a crisis," he said.
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