Trendsetters BMW & GMC Using the Web to Drive Sales

Today's larger, progressive companies are investing millions of dollars into discovering how to deliver their message effectively to consumers via the Internet. For smaller businesses with smaller budgets, the dollars that larger corporations sink into bolder internet marketing campaigns are like free internet marketing lessons without risk or expense.

While your company may not be as large as those mentioned in this article, the following scalable examples illustrate how moving even a small portion of your marketing budget over to Internet Marketing can translate into noticeable returns for your company.

BMW Takes Hollywood Online

6.5 years ago on bmwfilms.com BMW released and distributed a stunt-filled, action mini-film series called "The Hire" starring actor Clive Owen (Sin City and The Bourne Identity). Guided by such directors as John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Hulk, Brokeback Mountain), Wong Kar-Wai, Guy Ritchie, Alejandro González Iñárritu, John Woo (Mission Impossible II), and Joe Carnahan, this was unquestionably a big-budget Hollywood style production.

The 8-part series, each directed by a different director, won numerous awards and received accolades from the New York Times and Time Magazine. The result: over 100 Million film views translating into approximately 1.9 million film views per month over its 4.5 year run which ended in October of 2005. Though the series is no longer available for download, various websites still sell the DVD 6.5 years after it first debuted at the Cannes Film Festival.

If these films released via non-traditional media such as television, the statistics would have been less accurate and much more time-consuming and expensive to track. Imagine if those films made just 1% or 1 Million of those viewers curious enough to visit a BMW showroom. If even 1% of those 1 Million leads purchased a vehicle at an average vehicle cost (est.) of $50,000.00 USD that translates into $500 million USD of additional sales over 4.5 years; just over $111 Million a year of additional revenue.

Sure, few companies have the budget that BMW has but try scaling it all down and finding a unique way to present your own products online that will excite your target market and leave your competition in the dust. The lesson here is thinking outside the box.

GMC Uses Traditional Media to Support Online Campaign

For the last 3 years, GMC has been working with creative company Digitas - the National Football League (NFL), and the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) - to power an online interactive campaign for GMC.com. Mary Kubitskey, national advertising manager for GMC had this to say about the decision to move advertising dollars online: "Any day I'll trade traditional media money for something nontraditional. Digitas did a great job in putting together a promotion, and we feed the promotion with traditional media." The campaign is a direct result of the company moving a larger percentage of its advertising dollars online.

She also added, "As with all our traditional marketing advertising, we're trying to go more digital. It's not a surprise that 30-second ads aren't working like they used to, and this gave us an opportunity to interact with NFL fans and football. I spend too many hundreds of millions of dollars in traditional media and broadcast 30-second spots and it's getting hard to see that money work for us. So we're engaging Digitas to keep trying to bring us what's new."

Bigger companies are starting to realize that traditional media doesn't have the same bite as it used to so they're thinking of ways to use traditional means in conjunction with newer online strategies to advertise effectively. Think of ways you can use your existing locations or marketing mediums to augment or enhance a web marketing campaign.

By Michael Dela Cruz.

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Make Way for the GMC Canyon

The GMC Canyon is a compact pickup. This vehicle shares its basic design and powertrain with the Chevrolet Colorado. Offered in three body styles, the GMC Canyon is a pickup to consider. This vehicle looks impressive. It also brags about a lot of power as well as a spacious interior. The cargo space is also very accommodating.

The body styles comprise of the regular cab body style, the extended cab body style, and the Crew cab body style. For regular cabs, the maximum capacity of passengers it can take in its cabin is three. The extended cab has a rear hinged back door and has the capacity to take in a maximum passenger capacity of five due to two rear jump seats. As per the Crew cab, this body style holds four doors and has a maximum capacity of welcoming in six people because of its folding rear bench. The GMC Canyon is very much suited for personal use as well as light duty use. Even if it is a pickup it probably would not be able to work well for commercial use, heavy hauling, as well as for towing functions.

The GMC Canyon has a couple of engine choices for interested parties. There is the standard 2.9 liter Vortec inline engine which has four cylinders. This engine can produce some 175 horsepower and 185 pound feet of torque. The optional 3.5 liter Vortec engine has five cylinders and it can make 200 units of horsepower and 225 pound feet of torque. Both of these engines come with an electronic throttle control, variable valve timing, and coil on plug ignition. The vehicle also comes with an all new five speed manual transmission system.

The interior of the GMC Canyon holds 60/40 bench seats in cloth of vinyl. Made available for this vehicle are reclining bucket seats. The other features also include two forward facing rear seats with under-seat storage and a flat-load floor. There also is a driver information center with system readouts, an electrochromic rearview mirror with compass and outside temperature gauge, heated leather bucket seats, an AM/FM stereo with an optional in-dash six CD changer, the OnStar system, and the XM satellite radio. The GMC Canyon also has a six foot cargo box, a two tier loading, as well as a locking tailgate. For safety, the GMC Canyon has dual stage front air bags, optional head curtain side air bags, a reinforced safety cage and side guard door beams, high intensity halogen headlamps, fog lamps, an all-steel body, three point lap shoulder belts, and the LATCH system.

By Joe Thompson.