Our client is a leading global manufacturer, seller and exporter of a broad spectrum of automobiles such as commercial vehicles, passenger cars and recreational vehicles. The company has a strong presence and is committed to surpassing customer expectations through continuous innovation.

Business ChallengeUntil recently, businesses, and automobile manufacturers especially, relied heavily on TV and print for marketing their products and services. With the popularity of social media, however, digital channels are revolutionizing the marketing environment of consumer-based companies.

With a strong presence in its home region, our client was looking to penetrate more mature markets, and significantly increase its share in other markets. The top management of this organization realized that becoming a leader in digital marketing was imperative to the growth of its brand and market expansion. In this regard, the auto manufacturer commissioned a study

Accenture Interactive Helps Major Auto Manufacturer Execute Global Digital Channel Strategy

which identified the decentralized digital setup at client locations as a major challenge and proposed a comprehensive digital marketing strategy for leveraging the surge of online traffic, across multiple channels in both established and new markets.

Based on the credentials of Accenture Interactive in digital, especially consumer relevance at scale, our client turned to Accenture for help in implementing the proposed consistent digital marketing strategy. This auto manufacturer was confident that our team could support the rollout of enhanced brand and product experiences across all of its digital channels, including websites, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, mobile sites and tablet applications in a cost-effective manner.

How Accenture HelpedAccenture Interactive worked closely with the digital marketing rollout client team. It shared leading best practices and digital standards, and aligned the decentralized digital marketing initiatives to a global standard.

Using Accenture frameworks, tools and technologies, Accenture Interactive helped achieve significant improvements in several areas, including user experience, customer engagement, sales lead generation, customer relationship management (CRM) and social media integration. Accenture Interactive helped execute a consistent digital marketing strategy in two phases.

The focus of the first phase was on performing digital diagnostics, creating an implementation plan for improvements and enhancing customer experience across various digital channels in certain regions. Accenture Interactive examined key areas and made recommendations for improvement.

•Digital marketing platform

— Used a range of key user experience criteria and benchmarks against industry best practices to assess the client’s websites

— Conducted an in-depth analysis of individual digital customer touch-points—websites, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, mobile sites and tablet applications—and examined how they worked together in an integrated way to support consumer needs

— Based on the results, our team proposed areas of improvement, which included, though were not limited to:

• Introduction of feature-rich shop-ping tools for prospective buyers

•Multi-channel experiences including interactive brochures on tablet and mobile

• Exclusive experiences for existing owners such as FAQs and features to manage their servicing and mainte-nance schedule

•Search marketing

— Supported the selection of a specialist search marketing agency to manage search engine optimization and search engine marketing activities

— Worked with the agency to develop guidelines for improving the client’s search presence in key domestic markets

•Voice of the customer

— Helped capture customer feedback from multiple sources including, though not limited to, social media, emails, call centers and live chat with dealers

— Categorized each feedback, developed a standardized approach for respond-ing to customers and leveraged customer insights throughout the internal value chain, such as product development and loyalty management

•Performance measurement

— Identified over 20 global key perfor-mance indicators (KPIs) for digital marketing

— Integrated the KPIs in a global dashboard system which is currently being rolled out to provide visibility and performance benchmarking

The focus of the second phase was on assessing the Web Content Management System (WCMS) in several markets. In this regard, Accenture Interactive:

•Conducted a comparative analysis of the different content management systems in use at client locations

•Assessed the different technology platforms and made recommendations for standardizing them at a global level

•Developed a global Web style guide based on the client’s newly refreshed corporate identity (CI)

• Established user experience principles and examples from industry leading practices

In the near future, the client is interested in fast-forwarding the rollout of its global digital marketing strategy to many more markets. By applying global leading practices and user experience guidelines, the client expects to see positive results at an accelerated pace, without requiring a deep country-specific study or analysis.

With extensive experience in designing and implementing multi-channel projects for integration of consumer touchpoints across digital channels, Accenture Interactive helped our client achieve consumer relevance at scale. The short- and long-term results speak for themselves.

High Performance DeliveredOur research indicates that the car buying behavior of consumers has changed significantly. Where previously it was common for consumers to spend a weekend visiting many dealerships and looking at several different vehicles, today the first step for many consumers is to visit different websites. Since consumers have the power to either reward businesses or punish them by clicking away, manufacturers and dealers want their website to be highly interactive and easy-to-use with engaging self-service features. They also want it to provide a highly relevant, personalized and compelling enough experience in real time, so potential customers feel motivated to take the next step.

With extensive experience in designing and implementing multi-channel projects for integration of consumer touchpoints across digital channels, Accenture Interactive helped our client achieve consumer relevance at scale. The short- and long-term results speak for themselves.

Just four weeks after the recommended enhancements went live across all digital channels, the client observed improvements in key performance areas.

•Click-through to deeper elements of product content increased by more than 30 percent

• Improved linkage between offers and product details led to a smoother customer journey and resulted in a 250 percent increase in users viewing both the sections

• The number of views of accessories content—a key value driver— increased by more than 150 percent

• Following the introduction of interactive brochures across multiple channels, brochure downloads increased with 50 percent of visitors viewing the interactive brochures more than once

The client has also seen solid results in the long-term term.

• Improved integration of social campaigns across a variety of Web, social and offline channels

•A new dealer inventory search application has become a popular shopping tool, generating incremental high-quality sales leads, with conversion rates 14% higher than other lead sources used by the client’s website

• The company has become a top brand, following improvement in its ranking in a major automotive website evaluation study and recognition in another study for making innovative use of online video

A unique aspect of this engagement was that the Accenture Interactive team worked very closely with local teams in various geographies and also with the corporate team at the Head Office. This helped the client appreciate the value of delivering consistent and enhanced experiences in each country across digital channels and aligning disparate teams around the world to a global strategy. In the process, the client had the opportunity to understand Accenture Interactive’s capabilities beyond those required for executing this project, and it has considered Accenture for an upcoming project.

About Accenture InteractiveAccenture Interactive’s 1,500 professionals help the world’s leading brands drive superior marketing performance across the full multi-channel customer experience. Leveraging the full scale of more than 249,000 Accenture employees serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture Interactive offers integrated, industrialized and industry-driven marketing solutions and services across consulting, technology and outsourcing powered by analytics. Follow @AccentureSocial or visit www.accenture.com/interactive.

About AccentureAccenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 249,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$25.5 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2011. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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