Marketing

Rod Campbell, founder of the motorsports communications company that still bears his name, has died at age 88. He died March 30 at his home in Santa Monica, Calif., after a short illness, according to a statement from Campbell Marketing and Communications. He started Campbell and Co. in 1982 to handle public relations for Ford

Acura has named a new advertising executive as it plans to introduce new products, including Type S performance variants. Sage Marie, 44, will become assistant vice president of Acura advertising, effective April 1. He is currently assistant vice president, public relations at American Honda, and has been with the company since 1998. Acura head Jon

Volkswagen and Audi have temporarily tweaked their logos to help spread the message about the importance of social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic. In short videos posted on social media and their websites, the German brands urge people to follow the prevailing advice from medical experts to avoid spreading the virus. Audi shows the four

The coronavirus outbreak has toppled several huge marketing platforms for automakers in the sports arena and Hollywood. Buick is a corporate partner of the NCAA that leveraged the March Madness spectacle to highlight its vehicles with TV, digital and experiential outreach. Nissan Motor Co. also is a sponsor. The company has used Infiniti for the

Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda offered advice to the auto industry last week as it grapples with an unprecedented global crisis. Everyone just needs to stay calm, work together and be positive, he urged. “Don’t worry too much, but be earnest and help each other,” Toyoda said at a regularly scheduled press conference of

When dealers seek the best digital marketing vendors, they are often faced with a choice: Use a company that has preferred status with their automaker — with the support of co-op advertising money — or take a chance with an outside vendor and bypass the co-op dollars. As dealers try to grab consumer attention in

A Fiat Chrysler Automobiles dealership in Alaska has dropped its sponsorship of the Iditarod dog sled race in response to an aggressive campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The animal welfare group got 250,000 supporters to email FCA, ran TV commercials in Detroit and held more than a dozen protests around the

TOKYO — For Japan’s biggest automaker, the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics has been a five-year, about $1 billion bet on showcasing the company and its technology to the world. But speculation is mounting here that the games will be postponed, or even canceled, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. If so, Toyota Motor Corp. might be

Toyota will debut a new national advertising campaign with a gentle, optimistic message aimed at reassuring its customers as the coronavirus pandemic rages across the U.S. The 30-second commercial, which will begin airing in different media markets beginning Saturday, is titled “We are here for you,” and was produced by Saatchi & Saatchi, Toyota Motor

Ford Motor Co. is pulling all national ads promoting its vehicles and will replace them with a new campaign describing how it is responding to the coronavirus, including giving Ford Credit customers some payment relief. The effort includes two new spots, “Built to Lend a Hand” and “Built for Right Now,” from ad agency Wieden+Kennedy

Ford Motor Co., whose stable of vehicles includes the Mustang and soon the Bronco, has signed a five-year sponsorship deal with the Churchill Downs Racetrack in Louisville, Ky. The 2020 Ford Super Duty — made at one of two Ford assembly plants in Louisville — will be the “featured vehicle” of the 146th Kentucky Derby

LOS ANGELES — Mazda’s North American Chief Marketing Officer Dino Bernacchi has resigned after nearly three years of helping the automaker move upmarket as a “premium” brand, with new messaging for its advertising campaigns. Brad Audet, the leader of the brand’s ad agency Garage Team Mazda, will temporarily head the marketing team while the company

Mitsubishi Motors isn’t like other mainstream automakers in the U.S. — it’s smaller. With sales of just over 121,000 vehicles last year across about 350 stores, resources are tighter at headquarters and on dealership lots compared with bigger rivals such as Toyota. But Mitsubishi has big plans as it adds franchises every month, revamps its

Lyriq and Celestiq. Those are the first two actual names for regular production Cadillacs since the Escalade SUV debuted in 1998. Every new Cadillac since then has carried some combination of letters and or letters and numbers, often confusing consumers. They’re not quite actual words, but the return of names to Cadillac’s fenders and tailgates

BMW has updated its logo for the first time in 23 years, but the automaker is stopping short of making the change on its vehicles, it said in a statement.   The update, which began rolling out this week, is for “online and offline communication purposes,” the brand said, positioning its new look as “better-suited

Yonkers Honda is advertising a rather unusual job on its website. The ideal applicant should have “strong attention to detail” and “a love of cars and driving,” the dealership says. Also needed: “the ability and availability to binge-watch nine Fast Saga movies in a short amount of time.” The job listing is actually a contest

NBC has ordered up a TV comedy pilot ripped from the headlines of Automotive News. “It is set at the headquarters of a major American automotive company in Detroit where a floundering group of executives try to rediscover the company identity amidst a rapidly changing industry,” according to Variety. The show, called “American Auto,” might

Munich will succeed Frankfurt as the German auto show’s host city starting in 2021, the VDA German automakers association said. Munich convinced the VDA’s board that its city center and highly attractive locations close to downtown can be used to host events for the show, VDA President Hildegard Mueller said in a news release on

Mattel has created two radio-controlled toy versions of the Tesla Cybertruck. The bigger of the two, a $400 hobby-grade 1:10 scale replica that comes with a cracked-window sticker to commemorate the truck’s memorable unveiling, is already sold out. The toys are slated to go on sale in December, about a year before Tesla has promised

Ford Motor Co. plans to follow its rivals by offering a credit card that would allow customers to more easily finance repairs and earn them money toward service or new-vehicle purchases. The Visa card, which will be tied to the FordPass Rewards system and is expected to launch in the second quarter, would allow users

It never sleeps. It doesn’t need lunch. And it’s among the sharpest marketing tools in a dealer’s arsenal. Armed with artificial intelligence, a dealership can laser in on the right consumers at the right time, based on how shoppers click — or don’t — and hit them with different kinds of crafted messages that are

David Boice, CEO of marketing firm Team Velocity, says dealers are failing to tap a potentially rich source of business — and it’s right at their fingertips. “A dealership is sitting on a gold mine of data,” Boice says. Speaking last month at a Shift conference in Las Vegas, he said customers already in the

It’s not nearly as big or world famous as the Hollywood sign about 10 miles away. But the eight-foot block “Cadillac” lettering along Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles has been a landmark in its own right since 1949. The cinematic white neon sign atop Casa de Cadillac has attracted film crews from the likes of

Dealer software giant CDK Global Inc. has agreed to sell its digital marketing business to Ansira Partners Inc., a marketing agency owned by private equity investors. The Hoffman Estates, Ill., company said Thursday that it signed a definitive agreement with Ansira to sell the digital marketing business, which includes dealership advertising and websites. Ansira has

Subaru of America, in a marketing move that goes beyond brand hallmarks of love, the outdoors and dogs, has acquired the naming rights of a professional sports stadium. Starting with the 2020 Major League Soccer season, the Philadelphia Union will play at Subaru Park. It marks the first stadium-naming-rights deal for the Japanese automaker globally.

DETROIT — With the launches of the Bronco SUV and so-called Baby Bronco crossover looming, Ford Motor Co. is reintroducing itself to the off-road community. The automaker in recent months has inked sponsorship deals for King of the Hammers, an extreme racing event in the Mojave Desert’s Johnson Valley, as well as the SCORE World

The Subaru Outback’s marketing campaign highlights the crossover’s traditional adventure-ready selling points but also something the automaker hopes to be a new pitch — the model’s interior. Redesigned for 2020, the Outback’s most noticeable new feature is an 11.6-inch tablet-style touch-screen infotainment system on all but its base trim. The layout, a first for the

Honda and its luxury sibling brand Acura are launching a national ad campaign for used cars and SUVs as the automaker ramps up its certified pre-owned program to help customers facing rising new-car prices and dealers trying to improve profitability. “We’re providing the strongest support we ever have for the CPO program, and customers are

Growth in customer subscription revenue helped boost third-party vehicle listings site CarGurus in 2019. The Cambridge, Mass., marketplace company on Thursday reported revenue of $158.2 million in the fourth quarter, up 25 percent from the same period a year earlier. Marketplace subscriptions brought in $140.6 million, a jump of 24 percent, the company said. Net

Not even Forrest Gump’s Army pal Bubba could have come up with frunk shrimp. But Ford Motor Co. insists that chilled seafood is a perfect snack for tailgaters to enjoy from the front trunk of a Mustang Mach-E. The electric crossover includes a 4.8-cubic-foot underhood storage compartment that Ford says can function as a 36-gallon