Referrals
For its new SUV, the RDX, Acura wants to reach beyond the average automobile enthusiast. Car junkies might drool at the thought of turbocharged engines, super-handling all-wheel drive, updated transmissions and the like, but the RDX has a more urban, savvy driver in mind.
The vehicle incorporates technological innovations like a navigation system with voice recognition, real-time traffic, and Bluetooth capabilities for hands-free cell phone use, and to correspond with this technologically advanced Acura, the automaker has launched a marketing campaign through RPA that targets the tech-proficient consumer.On-air, outdoor, and print ads use tech-inspired taglines like “Turbo Search Engine” and “Wireless High Speed,” but of particular note is the image-tagging campaign that enables the targeted audience to use their fully-integrated mobile devices to be a part of the promotion.
When one of these “urban dwellers” sees an RDX print ad, he or she can take a picture with their handheld device and email it to win@acura.com. In return, customers will receive a message that connects them to a WAP page where they can purchase a free ringtone and discover how to enter a sweepstakes to attend the year's biggest music event in LA.
If you consider yourself tech-savvy, but haven't yet heard of this promotion, a few initial compatibility issues that have since been resolved might be to blame. More likely, though, is that perhaps you're not as clued in as you may think. RPA's Andy Van Aken, the brains behind the image-tagging element, tells ADOTAS that this campaign is largely intended to spread through a viral approach, something that the well-connected audience should know a lot about.
Members of Acura's tech-forward crowd tend to “live with their Blackberries and their Treos and their things like that and in a lot of cases, that's their whole lifeline,” Van Aken explains. He also feels that, while often getting their information through mainstream media, they tend to search for the latest and greatest things themselves. “They do things like go online for blogs and they seek things out. It's not necessarily expected that things come to them,” Van Aken says.
To correspond with this exploratory nature, the image-tagging promotion emphasizes curiosity over mass marketing. Information about the image-tagging aspect will be fed into blogs and will be featured on some promotional pages and sites of Acura's general media partners, as well as third-page ads in select magazines. According to Van Aken, “You will see some banners probably around, but it is kind of a discovery-type medium.” The campaign will also be promoted at events like the RDX Technocharged Tour that Acura is hosting with ABC to showcase the latest high-tech toys and equipment.
The innovative technology that lies behind the image-tagging itself is actually very similar to the image and facial- recognition software that is used in the security industry. In this case, RPA is blending the Internet, widely available on the tech-informed users' mobile devices, with the recognition technology to create a unique extension of a fully-integrated campaign. “It's just a deeper level of engagement,” says Britt McColl, PR Manager for RPA. “These guys have these cool phones, so it just all makes sense for them to fiddle around with the campaign and see what it's all about.”
Mr. Van Aken won't divulge just how many images have been tagged so far, but he does foresee extending similar campaigns to future car lines and communications with consumers. “As users grow on WAP pages and [use] the Internet through their cell phones, I think we will obviously take more advantage of that,” he says.
For now, the campaign will run through December 1st. So snap a photo of the RDX with your phone and send it along, because considering that if you read about it here, you must be pretty savvy yourself.
When Honda Motor Co. set out to develop a turbocharged SUV for the American market, the senior bosses in Tokyo didn't tap a Japanese engineer for the project. They turned to Gary Evert, a veteran of Honda's Ohio operations, and brought him to Japan for two years to oversee the development of the Acura RDX.
This is the second time Honda has put an American in charge of a vehicle program, underscoring the growing importance Japan's automakers are placing on their U.S. operations and executive talent.
Most Japanese automakers still design and build the majority of the powertrain and underpinnings for their vehicles in Japan. But they gradually are shifting responsibility for model design and engineering to research centers and studios abroad.
From the RDX, which went on sale this month, to Toyota Motor Corp.'s next Tundra pickup, more Japanese-brand vehicles are being conceived and engineered by North Americans, as well as being manufactured locally. The next-generation Acura MDX, a larger SUV that will hit showrooms in the fall, was developed almost entirely in the United States.
"North America is the biggest market in the world. For certain products, such as crossovers and SUVs, it is the market," said George Magliano, director of auto industry research for the Americas at forecasting firm Global Insight. "You can't get away with generic vehicles made in Japan and sold all over the world."
Honda, Toyota, Nissan Motor Co. and, to a growing extent, Hyundai Motor Co. have established design and development activities in North America.
"They're doing that to be sure they're meeting the requirements of the American consumer," George Peterson said recently. He is president of AutoPacific Inc., a consulting and forecasting firm in Tustin, Calif.
Local engineers have more insight into customer preferences and driving habits. They also may be closer to the suppliers that will produce components for the vehicle -- particularly if it's a model, such as the Tundra, destined primarily for the U.S. market.
Burden on Japan eases
In the case of fast-growing Toyota, the North Americans' contribution is essential to ease the load on engineers in Japan.
The bulk of engineering for the Tundra was carried out at the Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor. It built the prototypes, including the Tundra unveiled at this year's Chicago auto show. Toyota's designers in California conceived the styling.
Similarly, Toyota's North American designers and engineers took the lead in developing the Avalon sedan, said Bruce Brownlee, senior executive administrator at the Toyota Technical Center.
"We're designing the seats to accommodate the North American physiques," Brownlee said.
Asian automakers also are integrating more U.S. executives into their global operations.
"The American personnel in management has been moving up steadily in Japanese organizations, and Korean organizations as well," Peterson said.
Thomas Lane, former head of product strategy at Nissan North America, is now a Tokyo-based vice president of product strategy and planning on a global level.
At Nissan and Mazda Motor Corp., the rise of non-Japanese executives was due in part to the arrival of foreign automakers such as Ford Motor Co. and Renault SA as major investors.
Honda leads the way
Among Japan's independent automakers, Honda was the first to produce vehicles in the United States and it has led the way in integrating its U.S. and Japanese engineering operations. Industry analysts viewed it as a breakthrough when Honda appointed engineer Charlie Baker "large project leader" of the 2003 Accord sedan, its flagship in the U.S. market.
Evert, 41, who spent two years in Japan as a chassis engineer in the early 1990s and speaks Japanese fluently, initially was scheduled to run the RDX project out of Honda's U.S. headquarters in Ohio.
But when Honda assigned the development of the Civic Si sport-version of its compact to its U.S. engineers, Evert and the RDX project were relocated to Honda's Tochigi engineering center in Japan. The drive system was being developed there, as well as the turbocharged, four-cylinder engine.
Based on trends showing a reverse migration from U.S. suburbs to cities, Honda's premium Acura brand wanted to offer a smaller, more fuel-efficient SUV than its MDX for what it calls "high-energy urbanites."
This year, with U.S. customers switching to smaller vehicles with more fuel-efficient engines, Honda's reasoning seems prescient.
The RDX gets 19 miles per gallon in the city and 24 on the highway. The added power from the turbocharger peps up its performance. "In acceleration, we're beating the BMW X3," Evert said.
The RDX's base price of $32,995 "is a decent price point for that type of vehicle," said Jesse Toprak, director of pricing analysis at automotive research site Edmunds.com.
Last winter, Honda CEO Takeo Fukui, a rally car driver in his college days, took the RDX out for a spin on the company's winter test track.
"We were on a big sheet of ice," Evert recalls, "and he was driving the RDX maybe 65, 70 miles per hour. He said it was very fun to drive."
Honda is counting on the new SUV to win over American consumers.
DETROIT — Small cars that can be chopped into parts and sold for use by street racers dominated the list of the most-stolen autos in the U.S. last year, but high-priced cars and expensive sport utility vehicles also ranked high, according to a report released Tuesday.
Leading the way was the 2001 BMW M-Series Roadster, which was stolen at a rate of one for every 200 on the road, according to the Chicago-based CCC Information Services Inc., an industry group that tracks theft and vehicle damage.
Six of the top 10 most-stolen cars were models of the Acura Integra, which has a powerful engine that easily can be swapped into a lighter Honda Civic, making it a quick street racer, said Jeanene O'Brien, who analyzes the data for CCC.
The Acura models in the top 10 are from the mid-to-late 1990s through 2001. O'Brien said the 2004 and 2005 Suzuki Aerio, another small car with a powerful engine, appeared in the No. 11 and 12 slots almost from nowhere.
“That's where you see the whole tuner illegal street racing thing coming out,” she said. “We saw a big spike in it last year. There's been further movement this year.”
Such thefts are mainly in coastal states where illegal street racing is more popular, O'Brien said. The resale value of the parts is often far more than the value of the car as a whole, she said.
Thieves are grinding serial numbers off the Acura's double-overhead-cam engines and dropping them into Hondas, said Lou Koven, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department's commercial auto theft division.
The racers run their cars hard until the parts fail, then steal Acuras for replacement parts, Koven said.
“They're easy to steal, they're plentiful, and it's a lot cheaper than going out and buying the parts,” he said.
Most parts don't have serial numbers and can't be traced, he said.
The Integra was replaced by the RSX in the 2002 model year, but that model doesn't show up in the top 25.
Acura realized the theft problem and built more deterrent systems into the RSX, said Mike Spencer, an Acura spokesman. The RSX will not start without the key, which has a computer chip in it that the ignition system must recognize, Spencer said.
In Los Angeles, there's a huge market for older-model Honda and Toyota parts because the vehicles are reliable and stay on the road for many years, Koven said.
To compile its list, CCC first gathers data on vehicles that are stolen but not recovered, or are stripped to the point of being a total loss. Then it compares that list to vehicle registration data and calculates a percentage.
As a result, many niche models make the list because they are popular with thieves.
For example, although the 2001 BMW M-Series Roadster topped the list, only 5,000 of those models were registered nationwide.
Other limited-edition, high-performance specialty models such as the 2002 Audi S4 and the 2004 Mercury Marauder also made the top 10, as did the 2000 Jaguar XJR luxury car.
Despite high gas prices, several high-end luxury sport utility vehicles also made it into the top 25, O'Brien said. The car-market segments with the most stolen vehicles were the full-sized SUV and the heavy-duty station wagon, she said.
Koven said many older-model big SUVs don't have computer chips in the keys to prevent theft, so they are easy to steal. Such vehicles often are taken so thieves can rip out and resell their expensive wheels and tires or video systems, he said. They also are sold intact by changing the vehicle identification numbers.
A Cadillac Escalade's wheels and tires alone are worth $10,000, and even the 2002 model, which ranked No. 18 on the list, still sells for around $48,000, O'Brien said.
CCC, which provides software and information services to insurers and repair shops, compiles its report with loss claims from more than 350 property and casualty insurers in North America.
