The Dade Broward Acura Dealers are a group of 5 Dealers in Dade County, Florida. Until very recently, the group chose to utilize advertising materials made available to them by Acura. These materials are produced on a national level and tagged with the association’s name and web address. In late December 2008, the association voted to use Omni Advertising’s creative produced to promote a recently announced low payment on the ’09 Acura TSX. As a result, the Dade Broward Acura Dealers experienced a significant increase in sales in January 2009. The association beat their December 2008 sales numbers by 10% and beat January 2008 by 25%. January 2009 was their best sales month since August 2008. This was a considerable achievement given the current economic situation.

Case Study

Objective:
Change the way consumers perceive the Acura brand.

Strategy:
Acura’s corporate image was perceived as “nothing more than an expensive Honda.” To resolve this, we created the branding message “I Choose Acura,” which positioned Acura as the affordable luxury choice. The advertising demonstrated that Acura has more standard luxury features for a fraction of the price of competing luxury brands. To further our efforts in repositioning the Acura brand, we brought the marketing to the showroom level. We worked closely with the Acura dealerships and placed competitive models from BMW and Mercedes in their showrooms, giving shoppers the opportunity to see the value of Acura for themselves.

The Result:
In fall of 2008, when auto industry sales were in a drastic down turn, “I Choose Acura” was the most successful imaging campaign in the history of the Acura franchise. Sales skyrocketed up 28% within 30 days and Acura recorded double digit gains in market share during the ensuing months. Acura can now be found at the top of South Floridians’ luxury vehicle shopping lists.