Car Stereo: 12V Board Approves Second Industry Awareness Promo

The 12-Volt Initiative, formed by a group of key car AV suppliers and retailers to raise awareness of car audio, is getting ready to launch a second campaign in time for the spring/summer selling season.

The group, which brought us the Car Dance Mob viral video launched in November and the whatURmissin.com web portal, will decide whether to pursue a second viral video or to take a different tack.  Either way,the governing board voted unanimously to pursue some form of awareness campaign to help the ailing car stereo industry.

The final budget for the first viral video reached close to $200,000, including all expenses or about $2 per click received.

The video exceeded its target of 59,000 unique visits, reaching 75,000 by December’s end.  Yes, we know some of you hated it.  And the video did seem pretty lame, even though it was promoted by The 7^th Chamber whose clients include Nike, MTV, Xbox and BMW.  But 12V governing board chair Steve Witt insists the metrics were strong so here’s a few more:

The viral video drove six percent of its visitors  to the whatURmissin.com web portal and resulted in a very high level of a 40 percent click through to a dealer website (out of all those who visited the portal), said Witt. This last metric was very encouraging to the 12-Volt board.

“We had many voices saying you need to do something different.  However, the metrics have proven this… will work.  We had a very high conversion from web portal whatURmissin visits to store locator and specific dealer searches,” said Witt.   About 2,000 dealers are listed on the website.

For now, a new subcommittee is tweaking which demographics and message to target and another is working on which type of promotion to pursue, including possibly, a second viral video.

Witt said this is the typical kind of tweaking that follows a promotion.  The board is aiming to spend even more on the second video and may or may not re-enlist The 7^th Chamber.