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Millennial, Gen-X Media Opps: Cars.com releases sexy new campaign amid product launches (Score 48)

Update: In an attempt to attract millennials and Gen-Xers, R/GA to, well, drive brand growth. “We’re injecting the fun back into car shopping,” said Ricketts.

Per a recent Q2 earnings call, the last quarter has seen a $3 million marketing cost increase. The company recently released a Social Sales Drive, a product for retailers that seamlessly integrates in the Facebook marketplace and, according to CEO Alex Vetter, "is among the company's fastest-ever selling products."

Since the spot's debut on August 6, Pathmatics report that its year-to-date (YTD) national TV and digital display spends have risen to $12.9 million and $17.1 million, respectively.

Below was originally published on 3/29:

Vulnerable Account Index (VAI)following the recent hire of Sachin Gadhvi as VP of growth marketing. He is responsible for paid media, customer acquisition, SEO and data strategy. His previously served as CMO at Everything But the House, VP of marketing at Ticketmaster and senior director of search and mobile marketing at Ticketmaster. 

While this isn't a sure fire sign that an agency review will occur and CMO Brooke Ricketts, who was hired in 2016 (research here), there is still an opportunity for a media agency (media reviews often follow creative reviews and vice versa) and Gadhvi may want some assistance with his personal duties. So, analytics, digital and martech agencies in particular should start reaching out to get on Cars' radar. 

Sellers - Cars.com decreased marketing spend in 2017. But, with car sales decreasing and a whole bunch of smaller car dealerships popping up (the amount of used dealership signs I see on my commute to the office is ridiculous), they'll likely want to push spend back up this year to stay top-of-mind. So, sellers who can reach males (Cars' top demographic) should be able to secure revenue. Their spend is about even Q1-Q4, so reach out year round.

iSpot reports YTD national TV spend of $5.2 million, run in five week-long flights. This is down slightly from spend for the same period 2017, which was $8.8 million. At first glance, this seems to be because the ad flight currently airing (the sixth of the year) debuted a little earlier in 2018 than it did in 2017. However, the spend for just the first five ad flights is still down about $3 million this year (~35% decrease in spend).

Full 2017 spend was $23.4 million, down $4 million from 2016. Ads are placed on a wide variety of shows with a slight male skew (see show targeting right). 

Pathmatics reports a YTD digital spend of $6.8 million. Full 2017 spend was $15.7 million, down only $400,000 from 2016. The majority of ads are desktop display and placed direct. Top ad destinations include washingtonpost.com, king5.com, freep.com, kansascity.com and detroitnews.com. 

Kantar reports the company also uses print, which saw an increase in 2017. Per the last campaign, social media dollars have gone up and they have made their first-ever presence on Snapchat.