The numbers are in: A year after Irvine-based Kelley Blue Book Co. launched its first national TV advertising campaign, the traffic on its website is up 14%, attracting 16 million unique visitors each month.
“We’re absolutely thrilled with the result and the impact of the commercial,” said Steve Lind, vice president of operations for the 87-year-old automotive information company. “In fact, we’ll be running it all year long.”
Company officials were pleased to see that they beat industry averages on their first try.
“The overall new-car industry is only showing a 7.7 % growth [online], so we’re almost doubling the growth of traffic online versus what’s going on in the new-car space,” added Chintan Talati, the company’s senior director of public relations.
The additional traffic on its website has helped the company make inroads against its competitors, such as Edmunds.com of Santa Monica, which has 18 million potential buyers flocking to its site each month, and Irvine-based Autobytel Inc., which reported having 22 million monthly unique visitors to its site.
The 30- and 60-second TV ads were produced by Detroit-based Doner, Kelley Blue Book’s advertising agency of record.
The privately held company spent $6.9 million in 2012 on TV advertising placements, including airtime on DIRECTV during the Summer Olympics and on channels such as CNN, Fox News, ESPN, MTV, TNT, History, Comedy Central and the Food Network. It forked out another $12.9 million for Internet-based media buys.
“We’ve more than doubled our spend in the last year in terms of marketing Kelley Blue Book through TV and through our online campaign,” Lind said. “It gives you an idea where we think this brand can go, and we’re going to drive very hard against that.”
The “Projection” TV ads feature the company’s new slogan—everything you need to make a smart new-car decision—and focus on promoting car shopping tools available on its website. Its Fair Purchase Price feature shows the average purchase price others in the area paid for the same car. The 5-Year Cost-to-Own feature calculates the costs a consumer can expect to incur in a five-year vehicle ownership period, such as insurance and maintenance. There are also consumer and expert reviews and ratings.
The inaugural consumer marketing campaign also leveraged the established brand’s recognition as a vehicle appraisal pioneer for car shopping and research.
“It’s not just the content we provide, it’s the trust in brand name that really matters to people,” Lind said. “You put those two things together, and they amplify each other. The brand has been around for a very long time, and we’re proud of the work we’ve done around helping [it] be modern and continue to be relevant and be really the hub where people come to shop for a new or used car.”
The campaign also included radio ads and modernization of the company’s seal logo. The TV commercial was initially launched as a 60-second ad. Its flexible design allowed Doner to modify the message, as well as its running time, for a 15-second spot set to debut this fall.
Opportunity
Its first major advertising foray has also brought the brand an opportunity in the entertainment space.
“About a month ago, we actually integrated the [30-second] commercial into a TV show, ‘Necessary Roughness,’ ” Lind said. “They are showing the main character and her daughter using the Blue Book on an iPad.”
The TV drama placement is part of an online advertising campaign that officially kicked off this month to promote a mobile version of Kelley Blue Book’s website. The campaign includes paid online search and banner ads.
“We are seeing a significant growth in [tablet and mobile phone traffic],” Lind said. “They are becoming a very important part of our total traffic, so we know we have to deliver experiences on those platforms that function well on that type, whether it’s a small screen or midsize screen on an iPad.”
The mobile website’s touch-friendly features are tailored to Apple and Android tablet and smartphone users.
“It immerses beautiful images, and it’s very easy to slide and click, very easy to access information,” Lind said. “That just [soft] launched a month or so ago, and we’re having great results from that.”
Kelley Blue Book’s advertising efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. The Silver Telly Council awarded the 60-second TV spot and three online video reviews 2013 Bronze Telly Awards.
“From behind the wheel in our kbb.com editorial video reviews, we make every attempt to provide people with straightforward vehicle assessments and valuable information to help shoppers choose the best new car or truck for them,” said Jack R. Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Book. “The Telly Awards give kudos to kbb.com’s editorial videos as being among the best in the industry, and we will continue to raise the bar to offer site visitors the most informative, entertaining automotive video reviews in the future.”
The company still publishes the physical Kelley Blue Book and has sold more than 10,000 this year.
“Lots of people still use them and enjoy them,” Lind said.
Brainchild
The iconic book was the brainchild of Les Kelley, who began his career as a used car dealer in the 1920s. Kelley developed lists of cars that he wanted to buy, including his estimates of their fair market prices, and sent them to other dealers and banks. The Kelley’s Cash Price Lists gained popularity, and in 1926 he compiled them into an annual Blue Book of Motor Car Values.
“Branding” was likely not a part of anyone’s vocabulary at the time, but Kelley seemed to know what he was doing—he named the publication after the Social Register, a list of important people in local society often referred to as the Blue Book.
In addition, the cars Kelley was selling were “Selected Blue Seal Automobiles,” so he carried over the blue and gold ribbon medallion onto the book’s cover.
In 1962, Kelley focused solely on publication of the book, which was sold to businesses involved in the automotive industry, such as car dealers, financial institutions and insurance companies.
The Kelley Blue Book was released as a consumer guide in 1993, followed by its website in 1995.
The TV campaign supports Kelley Blue Book’s effort to remain relevant in the digital-first marketplace.
“Right Time”
“It was the right time for the company to do it,” Lind said. “We were in a position that we had a new website that was functioning very well, and we felt that we had great content that consumers were not fully aware of from a new-car shopping standpoint. The research said consumers trusted us in this space, and we thought that we had three very powerful attributes in the evaluations and reviews … to talk about that would resonate well with the consumers.
“We also had a great relationship with Doner. With all those factors pointing us in the right direction, we thought it was the right time to continue to push the [Kelley] Blue Book brand into the new-car space and make sure people are aware of everything we have to offer.”
The company was led by the Kelley family until 2000. Atlanta-based AutoTrader.com acquired it in 2010 for an undisclosed amount, which The Wall Street Journal pegged at “$500 million-plus.”
Kelley Blue Book’s revenues have not been released.
However in 2012, AutoTrader.com reported $1.2 billion in revenue, with more than 3,000 employees and attracting 29 million unique visitors each month.
The company is owned by Cox Enterprises Inc. of Atlanta.
