In Brief

Car marketers are having to juggle some fundamental challenges and opportunities in the automotive customer journey; in particular balancing both short and long term engagement. This means keeping an eye on monthly interactions, whilst also being confident that their brand remains strong enough to charge a premium and ensure increased profitability.

Like motors businesses, publisher’s businesses are changing rapidly, so it’s important to refresh the insight to take account of these changes. This report is designed to tackle some of these challenges and also to explain the role of magazine brands in today’s automotive customer journey.

We have pulled together evidence from a number of sources. Using different methodologies spanning consumer surveys, web analytics, neuroscience and eye tracking, this has enabled us to get a comprehensive view of the motors industry’s target audience to understand how they were engaging with car brands and car magazines.

Key Findings

• Motoring magazines are influential – 45% of respondents changed their perception of a motoring brand after reading a motoring magazine

• 53% or respondents felt that automotive titles make car brands feel more affordable helping justify premium pricing

• 43% reduced the number of brands on their shortlist and 20% added a brand to their list. In addition a third of people changed their prefered car showing that magazines influence brand consideration

• After reading a motoring magazine without advertising, 16% bring their purchase forward by an average of 2 months. After reading a magazine with advertising, 28% moved their purchase by an average of 5 months, demonstrating that role of advertising to accelerate purchase

• 39% increased their purchase budget after reading a magazine – this applied across a range of price points

• We used eye tracking analysis to see the impact of printed display advertising on share of attention, when advertising was included in a magazine the share of attention the brand received on their editorial mentions doubled

• Traffic to motoring manufacturers’ websites driven by motoring magazine publishers is significantly more effective than other traffic with a 74% increase in car configuration and a 120% increase getting visitors to book a test drive

• Motors magazine readers are a valuable audience for motor advertisers. They make up just under a third of all new car buyers but as they replace their cars more often, over a ten-year period they account for 60 per cent of all new car purchases.

Implications for Advertisers

Magazine media is impactful at all stages of the process or researching and buying a new car. By advertising in motoring magazines you can get your brand on to the customer’s shortlist if it  wasn’t already and, if it was, you can get to the top of the list. 

The impact on brand perception means that, not only do people feel that brands are better value for money, they actually increase their budgets. This means advertisers can command a premium for their brand.