Mazda North American Operations has created a new advertising campaign to boost brand awareness ahead of the August introduction of its Tribute sport-utility vehicle.
The new “Zoom Zoom” advertising campaign launching this week shows children and adults playing with toys and cars that go “zoom.”
The ads were created by Doner in Newport Beach as part of Mazda’s overall $250 million creative and media advertising budget. Doner also recently revamped Mazda’s company Web site.
“Mazda’s brand awareness is not as high as it should be,” said Stephen Odell, vice president for marketing and sales at Irvine-based Mazda North American Operations.
The ads will run for two weeks during high-profile prime-time programming on network and cable television and will air again in the fourth quarter following the launch of the Mazda 2001 Tribute SUV model.
Tribute spots that compare the SUV’s performance with the luxury of a sports car will launch in August with two 15-second teasers. By late August, they will be replaced by a 30-second spot that will run through October. The 200-horsepower V6 Tribute will sell for about $18,000.
The Tribute ads will echo the “Zoom Zoom” branding campaign with the tagline: “What would happen if an SUV were raised by a family of sports cars? Zoom. Zoom. Zoom.”
Mazda expects to sell about 20,000 SUVs this year followed by about 40,000 vehicles next year, Odell said.
“For the Tribute launch, we are spending nearly double what we spent to launch the MPV last year,” Odell said.
Although the bulk of ad spending is focused on national television advertising, a print portion of the campaign will appear in Newsweek, People, Time, Money, Men’s Journal, Shape and Fast Company, he said. Ads for the Tribute will be in the September and October issues.
