Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

Challenge
The great flood in Thailand disrupted Honda’s production of cars and parts. Soon after incident, Honda Malaysia suffered an uphill task for recovery due to sharp decline in sales. How can Honda rebound with their budget pale in comparison to the other aggressive competition? 

Solution
The online car consumers tend to receive new information before brands release them. Car enthusiasts’ forums and blogs are most active. They are ahead of the game – purging new information to the market, even before brands announced their launches. During launches, search traffic spikes higher as interested buyers ‘google’ for more information. Honda’s game plan: “takeover every car launch” i.e. whenever there is a car launch, Honda intercepts with their product. 

Execution
We tagged our car to competitor’s parallel model. Upon searching for any car, be it a compact hatch or family sedans, we have a Honda make to match our rival’s. For example, a Mazda2 search on Google, Honda City will intercept. That way, we get to pinch a share of impressions, giving Honda a shot to generate leads. We continuously optimize our search terms and keywords to improve campaign efficiency and ultimately lower our cost-per-click. 

Results
Efficiency did the job for Honda. Honda commands a high search impression share at 28% (overshadows competitors- Volkswagen@19%, [email protected]%, [email protected]%). Overall, strong brand consideration was indicated at 5% Click-through-rate. Honda’s cost-per-acquisition is significantly lower than competitors’ – ranging from 10% to 82% more cost efficient than competition.