It’s a brand new day in automotive advertising. And every new day is a new challenge for automotive advertising agencies to keep up with the demands of consumers.

 
Much has been said about consumers going online to conduct a vast majority of their car shopping — researching for up to 15 hours before they consider stepping foot into an auto dealership has become the norm.
 
However, there are even more shopping complexities than that, according to studies published by the Harvard Business Review.

In the study, about 75 percent of buyers said they had not contacted the dealership before visiting. Another 25 percent left the dealership without talking to anyone. That said, 90 percent still said that the visit to the dealer was the most important source of information during their car buying process.

Challenging times, indeed. But this type of evolution in the automotive industry is nothing new.Automotive advertising agencies have adapted to new trends since the horse and carriage days.
 

The First Car Advertisement

Many automotive advertising agencies consider Winton Motor Carriage Company’s “Dispense With a Horse” advertisement in 1898 to be the first automobile advertisement. The bold, compelling headline is impressive even by today’s standards — and it was effective.

The headline caught the attention of the public, but it was the clever ad content that clinched sales. Today, automotive ad agencies often use headlines to promote the features and benefits of a given product.

What you can learn: Keep it simple. Customers care more about how the product solves the problems they face every day than the bells and whistles.
 

The Ad that Changed Automotive Advertising

Just 10 years after Winton’s famous ad, the horseless carriage had evolved into the car as we recognize it today, and automotive advertising was a booming business. But they were still boasting a price point that placed them out of reach for low-income families.

Prominent auto manufacturers recognized that their largest market included wealthy families and crafted their ads accordingly. Ads tended to position cars as luxury items with rich features.

Henry Ford’s Model T design changed automotive design and flipped the industry’s advertising on its head. A simple advertisement with only eight words altered the future of automotive advertising: “High Priced Quality in a Low Priced Car.”

Although crammed onto a page among more well-known brands like Winton, Cadillac, and Oldsmobile, the ad stood out for its simplicity and carried Ford to household status.

What you can learn: Do something different. Ford Motor Company was lucky enough to find an unsaturated market and take advantage of it. But automotive ad agencies can still capture the attention of often-overlooked markets with compelling advertisements.

Think Small

Once cars became accessible to the masses, they began to grow and adapt to the trends of each passing decade. As they grew larger in both design and popularity, automotive advertisements became ostentatious, high-color ads that were expensive to produce and print.
 
Enter Volkswagen. Although the company began producing the Beetle and other vehicles in 1938, the Beetle didn’t land in America until 1949. In 1959, a series of clever advertisements helped showcase Volkswagen as a brand.
 
VW faced it head-on with their “Think Small” campaign. The campaign turned cars from a status symbol into a necessity; VWs are small, efficient, and get you from where you are to where you need to go. The ads admitted that the Beetle wasn’t fast or flashy, but it worked and it was affordable. They did it in a humorous way and this is now recognized as one of the best advertising campaigns of all time.
 
What you can learn: Don’t try to turn your brand into something it’s not. It’s OK to ignore automotive advertising trends and focus instead on your brand.
 
Today, automotive advertising agencies overwhelmingly rely on emotional appeals to capture their target market, which hasn’t drastically changed over the past 30 years: Adults 18-to-40, middle- to upper-middle class.
 

Moving forward

As advertising increasingly shifts to the digital space, it’s still important to keep the basic concepts in mind, particularly identifying the needs and wants of your audience and meeting them there.
 

Data provides you those consumer insights, whether it’s concerns are cost, trade appraisals, payment plans or automotive details.
 
What automotive ad agencies can learn from the overall evolution of automotive marketing comes down to one word: foresight. As soon as we produce an ad, it’s obsolete. Be mindful of the current environment, but prepare for what’s coming next. And as we see with these examples, it’s easiest to prepare for the future when you create it yourself.