By Deb Stambaugh, Chief Marketing Officer, Quantcast
The transformational nature of AI is crucial in predicting real-time changes in automotive consumer behavior
From politics and entertainment to climate change and economics, the signals that influence consumer behavior are numerous and seemingly unpredictable, and yet there are patterns in the chaos. However, the only way for marketers to keep up is by using the transformational nature of AI to predict these real-time changes in automotive consumer behavior.
AI is crucial for automotive marketers looking to instantaneously react and meet consumers where they are. The marketers that aren’t leveraging this technology will fall behind, unable to keep up with people’s evolving passions, interests and needs in today’s marketplace. And when AI is used to analyze and organize the vast amounts of data signals from consumer activity across hundreds of millions of online destinations, key changes in attitudes, interests, and behavior among car shoppers suddenly comes into focus for marketers:
The emergence of the Ecotech EV Consumer
The EV audience is more motivated by technological innovation than the environment. While 24% of the EV audience has concerns about the environment, a whopping 80% are browsing technology content, highlighting the tech-savvy nature of this audience. This includes being 17x more likely to be interested in green tech.
Hybrid affinity develops with many traditional brand loyalists
It looks like a window of opportunity might be presenting itself to capture market share with historically brand loyal demographics. Hybrid vehicle interest in particular is showing significant shifts across core automotive consumer age brackets. With change comes opportunity.
EV affinity is expanding as more model types are available
Auto manufacturers are expanding the pie. As new EVs continue to launch across all vehicle segments, including full-size trucks, luxury vehicles, and small, mid-sized, and large SUVs, they’re finding an audience ready to buy. The EV audience is 14.6x more likely to browse minivan models and 13.8x more likely to browse SUV models – as opposed to just smaller models.
With the customer journey less predictable in today’s uncertain and evolving digital world, there’s no substitute for understanding the ins and outs of how customers think, click and shop – a task only made possible through the powers of AI and Machine Learning. Layer onto this the numerous digital channels we have at our fingertips, and the consumer path to purchase is not only non-linear, but fragmented, with consumers sometimes interacting with multiple touchpoints at once.
Automotive marketers looking to understand these dramatic consumer shifts have to embrace new types of tools to move where consumers move. AI allows marketers to synthesize the massive amounts of data needed to uncover ever-evolving patterns and deliver results. As humans, we are not capable of connecting the dots and all its potential effects. We need the power of AI and machine learning to parse the large amounts of living and breathing data and adapt in the moment. With an up-to-the-second understanding of audience behavior, marketers gain the insights necessary to deliver perfectly timed and uniquely relevant advertising, across channels and touchpoints.
