Blog Posts by Marc Bland

On Monday, August 1, I was honored to be asked by Ken Smikle, President and founder of Target Market News to participate on a panel titled, "The African-American Auto Market: what we're buying." I was further honored to be joined on this panel by some of the sharpest minds in automotive marketing today, including: Don Butler (Vice President, Cadillac Marketing), Ayana Jordan (Chevrolet Diversity Advertising Manager), Tim O'Neill (National Advertising Manager Buick and GMC), Deborah Gray Young (Vice President, Burrell Communications - Toyota Account), and Ken Smikle who served as moderator. 


Photo of Panel:  Marc Bland (Polk), Ken Smikle (Target Market News),
Deborah Gray Young (Burrell), Don Butler (Cadillac), Tim O'Neill (Buick / GMC)
and not pictured Ayana Jordan (Chevrolet)

I kicked off the session by providing an industry overview and key insights for diverse market automotive customers, which include African Americans, Asians, Hispanics and women, with a strong focus on the African American consumer. My fellow panelists then took over and provided specific insights regarding how their respective brands (Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Toyota) reach out and make connections with consumers within the diverse markets.

The brands represented on the panel all have a strong connection with the African American consumer as follows:

1. Toyota and Chevrolet are the respective No. 1 and No. 2 industry volume leaders with the African American consumer, and collectively representing one out of every four vehicles purchased by this community.
2. Buick, Cadillac and GMC realized an approximate 30% or greater year-over-year volume increase with the African American consumer based on May 2011 YTD results.

One key component to success that Cadillac, Chevrolet and Toyota had in common was their close engagement with an agency of record that specialized in African American advertising as follows:

• Carol H. Williams Agency for Cadillac
• Spike Lee's Spike DDB Agency for Chevrolet
• Burrell Communications Agency for Toyota

To all OEMs that currently do not have ethnic agency partners, the text above should send a strong message that diverse market specialist partners like those listed above or others such as UniWorld (Ford / Lincoln) are invaluable if you expect to successfully grow your African American automotive market share. This is my summary of the 2011 Targetmarketnews.com MAAX Awards. I look forward to your comments about my blog.