-Objective three: To heighten brand visibility for the primary and secondary audiences from televised content by 80% by December 2012, at a cost of $500,000.
1) Product Placement in season 8 of Curb Your Enthusiasm. This show could be a great opportunity for Bentley to display its newest models on a popular program that portrays the life of a rich and famous individual, Larry David (HBO, 2011). Bentley vehicles would be perfect to reflect the style of the brand’s target audience. Curb Your Enthusiasm has prompted extensive online dialogue from the show’s fans over the past decade, which can allow Bentley to track noticeable increases in brand mentions online (HBO, 2011). With the show’s audience covering a diverse range of demographics, Bentley can spread its visibility, while narrowing its image. People will come to associate Bentley vehicles even more with wealth and success, while discussing the cars and the show on social networks and chat forums. To execute this initiative, Bentley needs to make a product placement deal with Wildfire Studios, the production house of Curb Your Enthusiasm. From there, Bentley PR representatives would need to publicize the deal in digital entertainment magazines, so the target audiences could access the news on computers, tablets and phones.
2) Develop an online show, “Becoming Bentley.” Ford Motor Company created an online show that followed teams of couples as they completed challenges in the 2012 Ford Focus. This show, Focus Rally, was a major success with Ford’s target audience of young, technology-savvy adults, scoring 30,000 at-home followers (Ford, 2011). Bentley could be the first luxury automaker to develop a web show that generates online interactivity from contestants and viewers. The show would be composed of 8 teams of two people who would “re-live” Bentley’s development as a company. For example, the first challenge would be to race a new Bentley GT at Le Mans in honor of the company’s first visit to the 24 Hours of Le Mans race with their 3-liter in 1923 (Bentley website, 2011). The slowest teams would be eliminated. In another challenge, contestants would chauffeur some celebrities around in a classic 1952 Bentley Mark VI (Bentley website, 2011). The teams that offered the most luxurious driving experience would move on to the next challenge. The show would conclude with a single team that had successfully navigated the entire history of Bentley and would win $50,000. To promote online engagement, Bentley would create a special website where viewers could vote on upcoming challenge options, could give his or her preferred team an advantage of some sort (like time bonuses) and could play online games and answer trivia. This tactic would be a bit more costly and labor-intensive, but Bentley would see a surge in online engagement, especially with its primary audience. The web show would run from September to November 2012.
3) Pitch an interview with Bentley Motors North American President, Christophe Georges on 60 Minutes. In an effort to reach Bentley’s secondary audience, the brand should arrange to have its U.S. chief be interviewed on the show, discussing the brand’s latest activity online and offline. The executive could answer questions about the new technology in the vehicles, the company’s growth since the recession, and how the brand is making itself a two-way communicator online. This could be a perfect way to reach its secondary audience, which is similar to the show’s target demographic, that may want to interact more with Bentley, but has yet to reach out to them online (Journalism.org, 2005). Bentley’s PR team should do media relations to publicize the 60 Minutes feature, and follow up the interview with online content for the primary audience who may not watch the show, but may still be interested in the interview. With this tactic, Bentley can merge its audiences to its consolidated online presence.
Sources:
“Curb Your Enthusiam: Forums and News.” HBO. Web. 04 Dec. 2011. <http://www.hbo.com/curbyourenthusiam/talk.html>.
“Focus Rally: America Wraps up 6,000-Mile Road Rally on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!'” Blog.Ford. 17 Mar. 2011. Web. 4 Dec. 2011.
Bentley Motors Website. Nov. 2011. Web. 04 Dec. 2011. <http://www.bentleymotors.com/>.
“Nightly News Audience Demographics.” Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ). Journalism.org, 15 Mar. 2005. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. <http://www.journalism.org/node/884>.