Over the summer, Unruly opened up their social video lab, looking to narrow down viral videos to scientific facts, to the point that the word "viral" has become a dirty word (although we still use it quite a bit, because well, it's still a buzzword). It didn't take long for Unruly to publish a major "white paper" on a major subject of video: how auto makers are using the medium. We know they kill it during the Super Bowl, and by rule they kill it online after the game is done, albeit briefly. But what Unruly found is that the automotive industry really isn't doing all they could do, and are well behind non-auto brands when it comes to online video.

Unruly's State of Automobile Marketing in Social Video Report

It should be noted that what I'm about to discuss here is an abbreviated view of their findings.  Many of the statistics they provide have sources not mentioned here, and I'm breaking down their data in as simple a manner as possible.

First off, let's take a look at the broad findings:

1. Video sharing on social media is growing, but at only 1/5 the rate of the overall market. That means they are doing OK, but not what they could be doing.

2. Four automakers account for 73.1% of all the video sharing going on in the industry. That means there is a huge amount of opportunity for other car makers to take advantage of a sorely underused marketing tactic.

3. Many brands are still trying to figure out how to tell a story, which is the chief aspect of keeping viewers interested and emotionally involved in online content.

4. Auto manufacturers are using a "top down" approach to drive sharing, meaning they are basically relying on the Super Bowl to give their ads a push and then just staying quiet the rest of the time. This means that a huge amount of the year is left untapped.

Unruly used "shares" instead of "views" for their primary data because that shows people engaging with the content and are likely enjoying it, meaning better chances at better ROI.

Unruly's Video Marketing Advice for Auto Makers

Unruly offers advice to auto manufacturers in a marketing strategy that is so ripe for the taking:

1. Tell better stories that drive sharing (that's pretty obvious).
2. Build brand preference, loyalty, and awareness (associate product with great content).
3. Increase responses to deal and test drive offers, brochure requests, and data capture (basically, increase calls-to-action, especially attractive calls-to-action that makes consumers want to better learn about a brand).
4. Engage more deeply with existing and future consumers to increase sales.
5. Start social sharing early, "grass-roots," and become less reliant on tent-pole events or TV advertising.

Setting the Scene – Need for ROI

Unruly cites data that shows that while auto sales will either stall or decrease across various parts of the world during 2012, there is an expected increase in 2013. ROI will be an extremely huge factor for auto makers during this time.  Most CMOs expect it to be the most important measure of success by 2015. Hence, a new approach will be needed to reach more consumers.

The Impact of Social Video on Automotive Brands

Unruly found that for every automotive video shared, there was an average of 25 peers who could see that content. That's based on the average amount of followers/friends the typical user has, and figuring in other factors like Facebook EdgeRank, the algorithm that limits the amount of people who see updates.

1. Increased awareness. In addition to social media, there are a number of websites auto makers can embed videos such as Skiddmark and Autoguide.com.

2. Increased Advocacy. People basically follow the advice of their friends, and word-of-mouth is the primary factor in 20-50% of all purchasing decisions.

3. Earned Media. By making content that people want to watch, it's easier to get blogs, sites, etc. to want to share it, and therefore your video has a chance to go all over the place.

4. Increased Attention. When consumers enjoy a video, Unruly found that brand association increases by 139%. Making content people want to see and having people associate you with it is a pretty big key, especially entering into a relatively new, untapped source of advertising.

5. Targeted Global Reach. 70% of the purchasing-decision process takes place online. So having great content where people already are, trying to make these decisions, is to the auto maker's benefit.

6. Increased Action. Here, calls-to-action: test drives, consumer surveys, deals, etc. Unruly makes a case for the launch of Range Rover's Evoque, which started a social media campaign that saw 2.6 million views, and 90,000 people stuck around to take a survey. And they saw an unheard-of 11.76% CTR.

7. Increased Sales. Studying Chevrolet, they saw purchase intent double for consumers who watched a brand's video over a control group who didn't see the video. A third of the viewers said they were likely to purchase the car, and 4% claimed to have visited a Chevy dealership afterwards.

Automotive Video As – Who's Winning

This might not be the last time you see this ad, which is still going strong:

Of course, when they made their "sequels" this year, they not only got views and engagement based on the previous year's video, but the previous year's video saw a spike in its views once again.

BMW's M5 Bullet accounted for 45.1% of their entire total video shares:

Automotive ads saw a 122% increase in shares year-over-year, but the rest of the advertising industry shot up 535%.

The top 20 automotive videos account for 95.1% of the total amount of shares in the industry, which shows that brands have a huge amount of space to work with. 20 videos making up nearly the entire amount of sharing is ridiculous. And only 4 auto makers make up a total of 73.1% of the entire automotive representation. I think this is the largest finding in the study, because it shows how much of the market is left untapped.

Driving Emotion

Unruly calls the positive responses consumers have watching videos High Arousal Positives (HAP). There are 4 major categories divided into 4 sub-categories from highest positive response to most negative response.

Being "hilarious" is a big deal, and those ads do well. But Chevrolet took on two different kinds of HAP with their OK Go ad: