Interactive marketers in the auto industry must extend the online relationship offline to dealerships—which requires a heavily integrated approach.

As director of interactive communications at DaimlerChrysler, Bonita Stewart leads interactive branding efforts for Jeep, Dodge and Chrysler. This role also requires her to manage the company's dealer Web sites as well. iMedia Connection caught up with Stewart—who spoke at the iMedia Brand Summit in Bonita Springs, Fla., this week—to talk about how interactive marketing plays a part in branding Jeep, Dodge and Chrysler, and what challenges lurk ahead in the industry.

iMedia Connection: What are the most significant roles online plays in building your brand?

Stewart: For us it creates a brand experience. Additionally, we have tools that allow and ease the shopping for the automotive consumer so they can build and price the vehicle, they can get a quote for their vehicle, they can experience a virtual tour. For example, we're launching our new Caravan and Town and Country minivans and we have this unique stow-and-go seating, so it allows us to show the consumer early on any unique features we may have. On our truck side, we actually have a comprehensive towing guide that allows the consumer to go in and—based upon their own personal requirements—they can select the most appropriate truck for them. We also use the Web as a promotional tool, so if in fact we have incentives on vehicles or if there's an incentive that's regionalized for a particular market, we utilize the Web through our zip code feature to personalize incentives for the consumer.

iMedia Connection: How does that localization work? Is that new to your site?

Stewart: That's something we've been doing and will continue to enhance. The whole notion where we are currently and as we look forward is to continue to personalize information as much as we can to meet the consumers' requirements.

iMedia Connection: Are there any online challenges that are specific to the auto industry?

Stewart: What's specific to the auto industry is our retail network. Unlike an etailer, we take it all the way up to get-a-quote, where users can select a dealer within our Web site and for a dealer to contact them. However, the actual purchase takes place in a dealership.

iMedia Connection: How does online fit in with the rest of your marketing efforts—is it standalone or integrated?

Stewart: We absolutely consider it to be part of an integrated marketing plan. In fact, the Dodge commercial on the Super Bowl was an introductory commercial for the new Dodge Magnum. While that was a major media buy, we also integrated that with an AOL online buy, and the results of that were quite astonishing online. So we were actually able to increase the get-a-quotes up to 1,500 percent. Super Bowl Sunday for Dodge, the traffic (as compared to a regular Sunday) was up 215 percent, which shows a major integration between online and offline. That, again, fits in with our whole notion of looking at the brand and building a marketing plan that is completely integrated whether it's print, TV, online, event, etc.

iMedia Connection: Do you foresee online playing a larger role in the mix?

Stewart: I'd say if you look at the mix it's the role it will play within the marketing process or within the consumer shopping process. An event can provide a branding experience, mass media can provide awareness of a product, but the online offers a unique opportunity to initiate a two-way dialog with the consumer, and that's what' so fascinating about the medium. It gives you the sight, sound and motion, but at the same time the creativity of the medium allows us to do many things.

iMedia Connection: What can or can't online do, despite what everyone would like to believe?

Stewart: Well, it's not going to replace the 30-second commercial. It can actually enhance, and that's what we saw with the Dodge Magnum example. While it was a major media buy, it actually drove get-a-quotes within our environment, which ultimately drove leads to the dealerships. So it augments a mass media plan. It works what we call "the bottom of the funnel." Once someone has seen the brand and the inner Jeep.com, Chrysler.com or Dodge.com—once they enter our site we know that we're on the consideration list, and that's when it's up to us within the site to provide all the tools and appropriate brand experience to move them all the way through and ultimately to the dealer to secure the auto sale.

iMedia Connection: Will online play a bigger role in coordinating with your dealerships, say five years from now?

Stewart: Absolutely. I think if we look at the current number of shoppers, and depending upon the age, close to 70 percent of all automotive shoppers are using the Internet. We only anticipate that will continue to grow and probably have the same penetration as a TV in every home. We assume that the majority of consumers will be using the Internet five years out. If we look at the other technologies that are emerging, such as broadband, we see the capability of offering rich media to the majority of consumers will be a non-issue. I also think that with the growth of the DVRs (digital video recorders) it will be important to have a very strong presence in the interactive media. When I think five years from now, it seems like cable companies and everyone is taking a look at that particular technology and are seeking to capitalize on it.

iMedia Connection: What has been your biggest online success thus far?

Stewart: I'd say it's been the Super Bowl and the Magnum. That's been terrific for us. Obviously there have been others. For Jeep there was an interactive tie-in. If you think about branded entertainment, we developed a Tomb Raider Wrangler that was in the movie and was featured in a special Yahoo! online promotion that was quite successful—again, that's an integrated approach we've used for Jeep.

iMedia Connection: What is the biggest online frustration or challenge you have?

Stewart: I'd say it's keeping up with the consumer, because the consumer is so empowered right now. The access to information or quest for information will continue to grow—it's having instantaneous response time. I think the expectations for consumers will be: "I asked a question, I wanted the answer yesterday" in terms of the information. That will be the biggest challenge: coming up with the right technologies and processes and marketing tools to stay in touch with the consumer at the rapid rate that they're adopting the technology.

iMedia Connection: Which technology do you think will be one of those major touch points?

Stewart: I think another interesting one will be wireless—the notion of not being physically connected anywhere. It provides a greater degree of freedom, and I think that between wireless, broadband and DVR, there will be a change in overall marketing to the consumer, and there will be higher expectations from the consumer because of that.

iMedia Connection: When you say there will be a change in marketing overall, what kind of culture change do you see happening?

Stewart: The culture change is now talking to the consumer. It's the level of e-dialog the marketer will be able to obtain with the consumer. I think that will be up to each and every marketer to improve their e-dialog. That dialog crosses all areas; what's traditionally called the customer call center over time will be more of an e-dialog center. On the Web site, the opportunity to engage at that point—we have this today—but it's engaging a dealer as part of getting a quote or requesting additional information. Just to give you an idea, we recently put all our brochures online as a downloadable PDF. Consumers have access to instant information. Again, it starts the dialog with the consumer. The beauty of the Internet is that you can continue it.

iMedia Connection: What do you have to spend time convincing management that online can or can't do?

Stewart: Part of it is just believing the numbers. The Internet is completely accountable. All transactions are immediately measurable. As soon as we came off the Super Bowl we were able to see a spike on the site; we were able to measure immediately the impact on leads for Magnum. I think the proliferation in terms of the number of consumers who are utilizing the Internet, that's what's astounding people.

iMedia Connection: Have you had to do more or less internal training than last year?

Stewart: Our online media buying is up 30 percent, and the training and the interest in interactive within our organization has been ongoing. Within my department, we are taking a proactive approach in terms of educating our colleagues on the value of online. We are also using Web analytics to assist our brand managers because we are the first point of contact in a sense for consumer behavior. So there's a number of things from a predictive standpoint that we can do. With a new product, we can predict mix. We know what the consumer is building and pricing at any point in time. So I'd say it's an ongoing effort in terms of disseminating information with the marketing group, sales, as well as other cross-functional areas. We take that task each and every month in terms of sending out appropriate information for them to utilize.

iMedia Connection: What is one thing you would like agencies to better understand about your needs and your business? What would make that relationship better?

Stewart: I would say in the past there have been marketing silos—like the event silo, with event agencies, or traditional agencies that are focused on print, TV, radio. Then you have your interactive agency. I think the most important aspect of this is understanding the power of an integrated marketing plan. It's having those agencies that are just in lock step on the consumers' movement within the shopping process. It is increased communication that is required to develop an integrated plan. And that's why we in fact now have all our communications under one singular entity to increase the integrated marketing approach.

iMedia Connection: What is the next big thing online? How will you use it?

Stewart: If you think of the message that's being communicated, when the Internet started it was banner advertising. Then the next thing was rich media. We're not quite there yet, but I think there's an e-commercial in the works, and it will combine sight, sound and motion in a very creative way that engages the consumer to initiate that e-dialog. Not only initiate it, but continue it.

iMedia Connection: Unicast recently came out with video commercials.

Stewart: Yes, and I was very intrigued by that because I think that gets us closer to the whole notion of an e-commercial. But it's when you start developing for the medium, and not just taking a current 30-second commercial and reducing it to 10 or 15 seconds, but really incorporating it and building an e-commercial that takes the techniques of the Internet in terms of creating a dialog and measurability. I think there's another level of e-commercial that's coming, and companies such as Unicast and Eyewonder who are bringing these emerging technologies will allow the creative agencies to take the banner to the next level.