by Pia Johannson 05.05.09 in R&D Comments (0)
Mainz/Munich, Shanghai, Boston, 20 April. Automobile manufacturers and other enterprises with a global distribution of brand products should be aware that despite providing cost savings and convenience, an internet roll out platform with a regional view of the home market can be harmful to the brand and affect sales. This is the core result of the international study netCars 2009 now published by mediaman research. For the report, the researchers surveyed close to one thousand internet users in Germany, the US and China for netCars 2009.
Managers of global brands on the internet are faced with many complex challenges: it is essential to convey a brand experience to diverse target groups; to present up-to-date multimedia-based product information; and to make buying and communication processes manageable in a simple and secure way. All of this in as many countries as possible and with the lowest possible cost. For the implementation and administration of their brand websites many manufacturers use a central rollout platform that provides the necessary material (programming templates, texts, photos, videos etc) on a global scale. Through this, they standardize their brand presentation, secure the consistency of data and preserve resources. Another appeal is that the complex global rollout of websites can be conducted quickly and efficiently.
New research results show the practice of working with rollout platforms in a new light: using the example of automobile marketing, the study netCars 2009 substantiates that there are significant country-specific differences when it comes to the website preferences of internet users. For this purpose, the researchers of mediaman research surveyed close to one thousand car buyers and prospective car buyers in Germany, the USA und China. The differences found were consistent regardless of the age of the potential clients, their preferred models or other criteria.
In Germany the user personality profiles “information seeker” and “configurer” are clearly predominant, i.e. persons preferring to put together their car in detail. American internet users, in contrast, place more importance on stimulation and choice of pre-packaged vehicles – the value of those factors alternated depending on whether the users were looking for new or used cars. In China, the aspect of stimulation prevails – also in terms of communication. Besides that, the Chinese, too, prefer selecting from preset vehicles over configuring them by themselves in detail.
The results of netCars 2009 denote that we need to examine the effectiveness of conventional rollout platforms: it is not advisable to rigidly assign a standard website to all countries. “This can lead to major losses in communicative effect of these brand websites,” explains Armin Bieser, co-founder of mediaman and publisher of the study in conjunct with Dr. Peter Sopp of mediaman research. “Rollout platforms should be so flexible that content, functions and processes can be localized for different communicative goals.”
About mediaman
With a gross income of more than EUR 6 million (2008), mediaman ranks as one of Germany’s leading internet service providers. mediaman is also represented in Shanghai (China) and Boston (USA). Under the label mediaman research the company does its own research into internet behavior with a focus on usability tests and online surveys.