Consumer Matchups: Hyundai-Gambling, Subaru-Acupuncture, Chevy-Hunting, Infiniti-Pedicures

LAS VEGAS – Certain people who visit Hyundai dealerships go to casinos too. A lot of Subaru shoppers like acupuncture. And consumers who show up at Chevrolet dealerships exhibit a likeliness to frequent hunting shows.

That’s according to the results of a Foursquare comparison study using smartphone locator technology and data analysis to match people’s by-brand visits to dealerships with where else they go, from smoothie shops to gyms.

The data crunching indexes the visit comparisons. Foursquare touts the tie-ins as offering valuable insights automotive marketers and others can use to know customers better.

The location-intelligence company has two consumer apps it draws its information from: Foursquare city guide and Swarm check-in.

For the automotive analysis, the 7-year-old company drew from both active check-ins and passive visits (for users who enable background location). Data is aggregated and anonymous.

“We see so much interesting data,” Rosenblatt says.

“We see so much interesting data,” Foursquare President Steve Rosenblatt says in a WardsAuto Q&A (below).

Here are some of the company’s by-brand pieces of matched-up information:

Foursquare reaches about 150 million consumers in the U.S. “Ten billion times someone has hit a button that says ‘My phone is at this place,’” Rosenblatt says.

“We can also tell if someone is near a car dealership. If they are, you can message them.”

Q&A With Foursquare President

Foursquare has provided consumer insight to various industries. It now plans to double down on automotive.

WardsAuto spoke here with Rosenblatt about that and more. Here’s an edited version of that Q&A that occurred at the J.D. Power Automotive Marketing Roundtable.

WardsAuto: Did you find any of this lifestyle feedback unusual, such as Nissan shoppers being more likely to visit a smoothie shop, Subaru owners liking acupuncture or Hyundai people liking casinos?

Rosenblatt: We see so much interesting data. There are lifestyle elements that offer insights. Every marketer is trying to get better and smarter as to who their customer is.

WardsAuto: So knowing these lifestyle nuggets means what? What does an automotive marketer do with that information?

Rosenblatt: We find consumers that index high as to going to specific places and owning specific cars. We help markets find and target those people.

WardsAuto: So does Chevy then start running ads on hunting websites?

Rosenblatt: They should. Different marketers use the data differently. Some may want to partner with particular events.

We’re having conversations about how you take the data and action against it. Are there things you should be doing, partnerships you should be having with your brand based on the data we have? It’s still early on, but those are the conversations we’re having.

WardsAuto: How do you do that digitally once you’ve tied the owner of a particular vehicle model to a particularly behavioral activity? You put those two things together and then what?

Rosenblatt: Think of it as the physical-world cookie. What places you take the time to go to three or four times a day tells a lot about who you are.

WardsAuto: Where would the subsequent marketing appear? It presumably wouldn’t just pop up on your smartphone would it?

Rosenblatt: No, no. Let’s say I open up ESPN.com or CNN.com or you name it, we do it through programmatic advertising.

WardsAuto: You’ve been involved in automotive, but you are making a new push there.

Rosenblatt: We are. We’ve been sitting on this (automotive) data for a long time. In the last year, we’ve hired someone in Detroit and a couple of people in Los Angeles.

WardsAuto: Are you directing your efforts toward automakers, dealers or both?

Rosenblatt: Mostly automakers however we certainly want to engage with large dealership groups.

WardsAuto: Have you found automotive a different breed than other businesses? Rosenblatt: It’s very similar. Everyone fundamentally asking: “How can I get smarter using my marketing dollars to connect with consumers?”

WardsAuto: So there’s no difference for someone trying to sell a $34,000 car?

Rosenblatt: It’s a longer consideration process, but it’s a matter of how do you capture them in that journey.

WardsAuto: And auto consumers are shopping around. Your company has worked with the beverage industry, but people who buy a 6-pack, unlike people who buy a car, aren’t shopping around that much, going to different beer stores and researching beer brands online. Auto consumers do all that.

Rosenblatt: That’s right.                

WardsAuto: That said, the marketing remains relatively similar and constant even though the products are different?  

Rosenblatt: There are fundamental core concepts, even though buying a car has different purchase and consideration cycles. For all marketers today, it is a matter of looking at the consumer data quicker and reacting to it quicker. All marketers have to adapt to that.

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