Following a solid 22 months of sales for its zero emissions Leaf model, Nissan has begun two new marketing campaigns in a bid to not only maintain momentum, but to also make the electric car appeal to a wider range of consumers. But amid these recent ad campaigns, as well as one by rival Kia for its Soul EV involving its troupe of animated hamsters, we’re left wondering why Chevrolet hasn’t pushed its beloved Volt, or Spark EV for that matter.
According to iSpot (an organization that tracks advertising), Nissan has invested over $30 million promoting the Leaf for 2014. iSpot CEO Sean Muller in a statement to the website Autoblog Green elaborated on this finding saying: “Nissan spent more than $400 million in TV advertising for its traditional fuel fleet, and $22 million for the rechargeable Leaf. It has since dedicated an additional $9 million on its new “Kick Gas” campaign which first kicked off on November 3, shortly after news of the electronic sales slump broke.”
 iSpot revealed that while the ads appeared predominately on CBS, Fox, and NBC, it still had a noticeable effect with viewers of college football, Gladiator, and The Rachel Maddow Show all being positively motivated by the ad. Nissan for its part claims that the ad campaign has so far been a success, and that it has actually helped increase sales of the Leaf for November. Meanwhile Kia and its recent hamster filled ad serves as a new entry into the fray, and iSpot estimates that Kia spent $15 million promoting the Kia Soul EV. Its slick visuals and fun marketing material certainly helps draw people in, but the new Soul EV still has limited availability in this country.
With such a lofty advertising bar being set in place by two of its key rivals, how has Chevrolet fared in advertising the Volt? It turns out not so well (and the sales go along with that) and that’s perhaps partially due to its more conservative approach in this arena versus the more aggressive styled favored by Kia and Nissan.
According to iSpot, Chevrolet only invested $2 million over a span of a few years to promote the plug-in hybrid Volt on TV along with 62 different online advertisements. Yes, the Volt is an older car, but then again so is the Leaf. Though, if GM is still losing money on every Volt sold, perhaps it’s for the best that the plug-in Chevrolet isn’t a sales star?
This all shouldn’t go without saying that Chevrolet plans on debuting the all-new, 2016 Volt at the 2015 New York International Auto Show in Detroit next month. To that end, the lack of marketing budget could simply be a shift in focus from the outgoing Volt to the new Volt. Hopefully this go-round, the marketing won’t just be a flash in the pan.
Comments
No kidding!
GM stopped most of the marketing a year after release. You see and hear so little about this car anymore and it is amazing that I see so many on the road with so little marketing.
I hope they have a good long term marketing plan for the new model once it is released. This car needs it’s story told yearly not just at the release.. This segment does not sell itself it has to be sold.
GM needs to drop the technical bits and focus more on the life style of owning a car like this and just what it will do for you. In other words sell this car and how you would live with it and what it will do for your. Show where you may fill up with gas once every 6 months with a real person showing how they do it with a plug in every night. Hell Jay leno drove his a year on the same tank and he drove it daily.
Show how quiet it is and how much torque it has. Most people just think this is a Cruze hybrid and it is much more.
Often, when I drove my black 2012 Volt, people would come up to me and say “Nice looking car! What is it?” and when I would reply, “A Volt.” The next question would be “What’s a Volt?”
I’m now driving a wicked-gorgeous crystal red 2015 Volt that I special ordered and last week at a convenience store a lady next to me said, “That’s a beautiful car.” I said thank you, it’s a Volt.” Then she says, “A what?”
I drive my Volt 45 miles one way to a second ranch my wife and I own here in Texas in the next county where I have a Level 2 charger. I do my chores there, usually taking 3 to 6 hours and then “head back to the ranch” (so to speak) where I also have a second Level 2 charger.
My first Volt “Dusty” went 27,000 miles and only needed 42 gallons of gas. In fact, the first time I ever saw the gas cap was on day 366 after I drove it off the dealer’s lot when I bought it. I had to get the owners manual out to determine if a proctologist or something like that, needed to pop a pressure valve on the gas cap before opening it. I remembered someone saying the Volt had a pressurized tank and I was not very sure what I had to do, when popping the gas cap the first time, a year after I bought it.
One day, I needed to make a 702 mile hellish drive to Waco, Texas and back and I took “Dusty” and thus the only reason I blew through 42 gallons of gasoline in the 27 months I owned that car.
My second Volt “Dusty Too” looks like it will be a repeat story. I took delivery of “Dusty Too” on August 6th and as I make my comment here tonight on December 8, the second Volt has just topped 6,400 miles and it’s used 3 gallons of gas, mainly because I was a whoosie one very cold morning and purposely forced the gasoline engine on because my feet were freezing inside my cowboy boots. Looks like “Dusty Too” will probably also go 366 days before I need to buy gas for it (that is if I buy boots that have a built-in neater…) If not, and my tootsies continue to get cold, I’ll easily make it to 2015 before I buy gas, and only because my toes got cold.
GM stands for “Gawd Awful” marketing. They make a hell of a car, but as we say here in Texas, “They don’t know squat about story tellin’ …”
It is not just the Volt. I have a HHR SS and people see it they tell me they like what I did with it.
Then the shock arrives when I tell them I did not add any body parts and emblems and it is stock from the factory. Then they are really shocked when I show them the Turbocharged Direct Injection engine. The first words out are “I never knew they did something like this”?
I hope this will not be common. When I was looking for a small SUV/CUV for my wife in Feb 2009, I was hooked on the Ford Escape, having seen the ads and rented one for three days to feel it. But, unfortunately for us and fortunately for GM, all the Ford dealers were out of Escapes and were offering Explorers instead for a bit more. So we visited our GM dealer and saw the Chevy Equinox. My wife like it, and we arrived when GM was in a slump (before the bankruptcy) and that day they had not made any sales. We bought our blue 2009 Equinox almost at dealer’s price and at zero interest for five years. We also received a dealer’s discount for accessories at the same time because we were the first (and maybe the only) sale of that day.
Yet with all these wonderful treatments, we have never heard or read about the Equinox which began selling in 2005. The Equinox is now Chevy third best selling vehicle worldwide and everyone, including us, loves it! After five years, we only had two problems (wheel sensor and spark plug) which were replaced under warranty at no cost to us.
Now I see newer Equinox ads, and more new Equinox models on the road. I wish GM can realize how well they sell just by word of mouth (as the Volt is selling) and how well the new ads are doing. GM must promote its new Volt and the new 2016 models extensively, since many are redesigned (including the Equinox), and mabe GM will decide to produce an EREV Equinox!
While a EREV Nox would be tremendous idea it is just not that easy to pull off yet.
Pure physics and the limits of the batteries are what would prevent this. A Nox even the lighter one coming may be too heavy and the frontal area and drag would kill the range.
Now a smaller lower version of something similar to the Orlando like shown in China might have a chance but it is too soon and technology is just not to where we need it to do this one right yet.
Also the price to where they could make money would make it too high. Here again a Cadillac may be a better place to try this first.
Rumors in the company: GM loses more than $12000 per vehicle (factory, raw material, manufacturing, parts, labor, excluding R&D), that is why they don’t promote this car, mayn people suspect the company will NEVER recoup the billion dollar invested in R&D, and the most talented battery people have already left (usually go to academia)
The sales is so low, LG’s plant operates at 25-30% capacity, because of that, LG penalized GM for not selling enough vehicles, because LG Chem is also hemorrhaging money.
All of you should appreciate the hard working employees for bringing this fantastic product, yet all of you are as*h*les, because your demand for low price is hurting the company’s bottomline, realistically, if GM produce and sell 150,000 of this per year, they probably break even at $40,000 per car, unfortunately that can never be achieved. (150,000 @$40,000)
Don’t be surprised the new product will become a compliance vehicle next year (sales restricted to a few states)
I do not doubt anything you say. It makes sense with what we do know. I expect the profit margin to be better in the next gen.
But to be fair GM knew going in that making a profit with this car at the price they targeted was going to be difficult. But if they do not create a market then the prices will never go down and no one would invest in batteries and other items need to drive down cost and improve range. I think GM is trying to manage this segment with cost vs. advancement and continue to make inroads to make a profit while improving the product.
As for sales in limited areas and targeted markets GM has already stated this was a possibility.
And for calling everyone A holes is a bit much. Not everyone here can afford a $40K gas car let alone a small electric one. This is not a matter of being cheap but a matter that many can not afford much more than a Cruze. They are willing just not able.
Now if they had made the ELR a little larger and with 4 doors it may have had a better chance. The styling is amazing but for that price people expect a little more utility. I am not a Tesla fan but at the same price it has a little more to offer. I expect Cadillac will address this soon with a Electric hybrid sedan of their one soon.
This segment has a lot to be learned yet and not all the companies will hit the right combo right away but they all will figure it out at some point. This is really uncharted territory.
Next the Hydrogen Cell models will add a new twist to all this to.
GM just did it backwards is all. If they would of produced the ELR first at its current price premium to recover some of the R&D and manufacturing costs…then they could of released the cheaper Volt and possibly had more money for advertising/marketing.
Hind sight is 20/20. Back then no one ever thought anyone would pay $75K for a electric hybrid.
You are correct but back 7-8 years ago even the most informed did not see that coming.
No one I’ve met, has a clue about the Cruze diesel. We’ve signed well over 10,000 miles on this machine, and are totally pleased, and impressed… Yet not one lousy commercial has been done on this extraordinary machine.
600 to 700 miles on a tank is the norm.
At a has station in Georgia, an attendant yelled a warning over the microphone/loud speaker that I was putting diesel in our car!