This week, eMarketer published Connected Cars 2020: Intelligent Mobility Paves New Roads for Marketers, the second part of its series on the Internet of Things. Analyst Victoria Petrock interviewed people across the industry for it, from Amazon's Alexa automotive team to Wunderman Thompson and the Consumer Technology Association. I was glad to be one of them.
What the report covers
The report's starting point is that new cars aren't just transportation anymore. They're becoming entertainment, communications and productivity hubs, full of sensors and connections, and the data they produce is a new opportunity for marketers who use it responsibly.
It walks through the forces shaping that market: voice assistants coming standard in cars, automakers and tech companies working toward more open platforms, self-driving cars taking longer than expected, and a gradual shift from owning a car toward mobility as a service, where people pay for rides and services instead of vehicles.
Where Vugo comes in
That last shift is where Vugo lives. The report describes Vugo as "a company that specializes in targeted advertising and entertainment in ride-share vehicles," and here's how I put it:
"When we look at mobility, it's going to be less about who's manufacturing the car and more about the corresponding services. When you hop in a ride-share vehicle today, you're probably not thinking, 'this is a Ford, or a Toyota, or a Chevy,' you're thinking, 'this is an Uber, or a Lyft or a Didi or Ola.'"
When the service matters more than the car, the experience inside the car becomes the brand's moment. Knowing where a rider is headed makes that moment relevant:
"It could be something as simple as, 'Hey, I'm headed to a clothing store at a mall, show me an ad for a 10% off coupon if I bring that coupon into that store that day.' That's a very simple thing that can be done today that would get very good clickthrough rates because it's relevant and contextual."
Why it matters for marketers
For brands, the takeaway is that the car is turning into a media channel, and the person in the back seat is the audience. Loyalty to a car brand will matter less over time; relevance in the moment will matter more. That's the experience we're building: content and offers in the back seat that fit where riders are and where they're going, with the revenue shared with the drivers who carry them.
Thank you to Victoria Petrock and the eMarketer team for including Vugo. The full report is available to eMarketer subscribers: read Connected Cars 2020 on eMarketer.
See our case for free transportation, Vugo on TV in 2018, or get in touch.