This will be a challenging year for all car manufacturers, predicts Tom Fels, Publicis Machine MD, with both marketing teams and their creative agencies having to rethink how they sell brands. “Automotive companies typically have a product portfolio that allows them to cater for the entire customer lifecycle,” he says. “However, brands can no longer rely only on a transactional relationship. If they want any kind of longevity in their customer relationships they need to add value, improve the level of service they offer and grow their customer’s desire to engage with the brand.” To achieve this, personalisation, he believes, will become key. “The real challenge will be how to use data wisely to understand where people are in their lives and then to target them with the most appropriate product in your range. This is something many companies are still grappling with.”
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