TV advertisers pushing people to do independent research on the web?
Feb 14, 2006 in Uncategorized, Marketing
For the first time I saw two ads that actually encouraged consumers to do independent research on their products. The first was for GMC trucks. They encouraged consumers to confirm their claims by visiting Kelly Blue Book online at KBB.com. The second was Pontiac. They encouraged consumers to “Google” “Pontiac” and find out for themselves. They even showed a screenshot of the google homepage with “pontiac” in the search box!
I had never seen this before. Essentially the companies where saying, “trust us - go do the research and you’ll find that what we said in this ad is true.”
Recently in the advertising management class that I am auditing (taught by Dina Mayzlin), we discussed product pricing, online price comparison services, and search costs. Car purchases are significant and consumers are willing to do research to find the best deal. Studies have shown that informed consumers have lowered dealer margins. It’s interesting to see companies encouraging consumers to do online research. Perhaps it’s a case of if you can’t beat them, join them. They know consumers will do the research, so why not encourage it and build brand trust and hopefully increase market share… Interesting to see if this becomes a trend.