New Agency Breathes New Life Into Mazda
Crucial to the recovery of Mazda Corp., which last week reported its first profit in six years, is the revival at its once-troubled U.S. unit, based in Irvine.
While cost-cutting has been important to Mazda North American Operations, so was the much-needed image make-over for an auto maker variously known as the rotary car company, the great little car company or the Miata company.
The 15-month-old advertising campaign from Southfield, Mich.-based Doner identifies Mazda as the company for people who love to drive--giving the Japanese auto maker what analysts say is its first clear message in years.
And consumers are responding to it.
Mazda’s U.S. sales rose almost 9% in 1998 after three years of steep decline. So far this year, sales through April trail last year’s pace, but Richard Beattie, president of the car company’s North American organization, expects to reverse that trend this month.
Mazda’s effort to develop an image that sets it apart is a lesson other troubled second-tier importers, including Gardena-based Nissan North America Inc., could learn from, analysts say.
Mazda’s ads, which use the slogan, “Get in, be moved,” are aimed at people who appreciate cars with sporty features and want to make a statement about themselves with their vehicles. Ads combine computer-generated backgrounds with live action to put various Mazda models into a colorful, high-energy environment dubbed “Mazda World,” where driving is an important and satisfying experience.
The ads have “repositioned [Mazda] as more of a driver’s car,” said Dean Benjamin of AutoSource in Manhattan Beach. “They are targeting consumers who want something more than basic transportation.”
When Beattie, a former Jaguar executive, came to Mazda in 1997, he said he found an inefficient company with “an image that was bouncing all around.” By the end of that year, Mazda parted ways with its ad agency of 27 years, Foote, Cone & Belding, and awarded its $250-million business to Doner.
One of the first things Doner did after securing the Mazda account, said the agency’s Tim Blett, was to contact Mazda owners across the country who had placed ads in newspaper classified sections to try to sell their cars.
“People told us it was a great car, but that they were ready for a change. And they weren’t looking for another Mazda,” Blett said. “So we decided that we had to create a stronger bond between the customer and the company.”
Doner said its market studies showed that the typical Mazda customer thinks driving is fun and that the cockpit of a car or truck is an important part of the environment.
The resulting ads are targeted at buyers in the 24-55 age bracket, a much younger profile than in previous campaigns. Mazda is aiming its subcompact Protege, once most popular with 40-ish adults who wanted a smaller second car in the garage--at first-time buyers.
In one ad, a group of twentysomethings drives a Protege through a surrealistic cityscape accompanied by a vocal, set to music from The Nails’ “88 Lines About 44 Women,” bemoaning the trials and tribulations of their workaday lives. A voice-over, as the car drives off screen, says that the Protege “is a change from your high-maintenance relationships.”
Blett said the music is critical. For the 626 sedan the agency chose David Bowie’s “Rebel, Rebel.” For the Protege, it used the more youthful Nails song. For the Miata, commercials feature an energetic composition by the rock group Rev. Horton Heat.
Previous ad campaigns were “pretty staid and didn’t give people any reason to look at Mazda over Honda or Toyota,” said consultant Benjamin. By not carving out distinct roles for themselves in shoppers’ minds, analysts say, the other import car makers are surrendering to the two Japanese giants without a fight.
Beattie acknowledges that Mazda still has a long way to go in the U.S.--which accounts for almost all of the company’s North American sales. While 1998 sales in the U.S. were up by almost 20,000 vehicles, an annual gain of 8.4%, they were off by nearly 37%--or 140,000 vehicles--from the peak in 1986.
Still, the Irvine-based unit accounted for about half of the parent company’s worldwide profit in 1998.
“We’ve still got challenges,” Beattie says--echoing Mazda Corp. President James Miller’s assessment of the company’s worldwide outlook.
Industry analysts agree, but the consensus seems to be that Mazda--controlled by Ford Motor Co. since 1996 and benefiting from Ford’s drive for a unified, global business plan--is on the way back up.
Sales of Mazda’s offerings, including the B-series pickup and the Millenia near-luxury sedan, are running well above 1998 levels, Beattie said.
“You’ll see every month from now on that we will post year-over-year sales increases,” he said. Mazda has never had much of a problem with its products--its cars and trucks get high marks for reliability, looks and performance. But the company shot itself in the foot with a massive and ill-thought-out expansion plan in the early 1990s. Mazda introduced six new models in less than a year and didn’t pay much attention to a marketing plan.
Since then, Mazda has pared and refined its U.S. menu. It now has five models in its lineup and will be adding two more--a new minivan this year and a new sport-utility vehicle next year built on the mid-size 626 platform. The two new vehicles will improve Mazda’s ability to compete in the critical truck arena, which now accounts for about half of all new vehicle sales in the U.S.
There also is growing speculation that Mazda later this year will allow Beattie to reinstate the rotary-engine RX-7 sports car in the U.S. lineup. It had been Mazda’s signature car for years--it still is in Japan--and bringing it back would help cement the company’s image as a progressive, youth-oriented car maker, said AutoSource’s Benjamin.
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Getting Up to Speed
Mazda North American Operations accounted for almost half of the Japanese car maker’s global profit last year, but the Irvine-based unit has a long way to go before it can claim full recovery.
Car and Truck Sales
In thousands
1998: 240,564
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Share of U.S. Market
1998: 1.5%
Source: Automotive News Data Center, Mazda North American Operations
