V8 event shows best brands win marketing race

Russell Bell PHOTO/FILE

There was a lot of whooping and hollering on Facebook on Sunday night after the result of a race between four-door sedans was revealed across the ditch.

It is really interesting to learn what people get passionate about and the energy which is associated with passion.

For the record, I drive a Holden but the days of me dedicating an entire afternoon to watching cars trying to escape their "cage" of an infinite elliptical orbit are long gone.

Basically when I realised I was watching the race for the crashes I decided to give it a miss - also, the end coincided with another elliptical orbit, fatherhood.

But in among the cries of success and the consternation of the best car on the track running out of fuel, I had to salute the manufacturers for what has been one of the greatest marketing campaigns "since Adam was a go-kart racer".

Although they have faced extreme competition from Japanese and, more recently, Korean vehicles, Ford and Holden occupy and dominate certain segments of the New Zealand car market. And the V8 Supercar Championship is the ideal venue to showcase their flagship models.

Indeed, there is the added benefit that the technological advances from the racing also make their way into the everyday vehicles which mere mortals like myself drive.

In fact, it will be a brave man to prize me from my Commodore SV6, which is the best vehicle I have ever owned.

The ingredients of successful marketing are:

Strategy - have a plan and define your goals for marketing spend as a whole and for your campaigns.

Understanding segments and directing your efforts at them. Anyone who tells you a "shotgun" approach is the most effective is fooling themselves.

Choose the right medium for your message, making sure that your message is carried by the right mediums to target customers.

Create quality messages - messages which stick are those which are designed effectively to leave a lasting impression and avoid being lost in the multitude of lower quality messages.

Integrate to ensure that your marketing is inexorably linked to your wider business strategy.

Originality - the more you can stand out from the crowd, the better.

Effective branding - a well-constructed and designed brand is one of the most effective marketing tools. A high quality brand will mean your customers and the market at large will identify with your business and understand you are a high quality provider.

An effective marketing strategy can set your business positively apart from your competition and, like Holden and Ford, enable you to connect with current and future supporters and customers.

From there, you may develop the most valuable customer of all - the passionate supporter.

Russell Bell's Zenith Strategic Solutions is a specialist Wanganui business advice and consultancy practice - 021 2442421.