Sophus3

Last week Polestar UK became the latest car brand to announce that it was abandoning the agency retail model and reverting to a traditional franchise arrangement with dealers. But is the agency experiment imploding because of genuine, inherent shortcomings or because of the resistance to change from various vested interests? Whichever model achieves ascendancy, the same challenge remains to deliver what customers repeatedly say they want when purchasing a car. That is: 🛒 Transparent, consistent pricing without coercion or the need to haggle 🛒 The choice of the car they want; not the one the dealer or manufacturer wants to get rid of 🛒 Seamless interaction without constant 'resets' each time they have contact with the dealer, the brand or its finance arm. At Sophus3 we believe 'the model' debate has become a distraction to tackling those shortcomings and ensuring that the customer is placed front and centre in everything that the brand and its representatives do—whatever the commercial arrangement between them.

Over the last two months, the Renault/Dacia live showroom team has received over 300 enquiries relating to the new Scenic E-Tech. Sophus3's technology is designed to let online customers learn more about the car, helping them make an informed decision. Whether through live chat or a more immersive product demo, product experts can handle enquiries, qualify leads and deliver an appropriate brand response. Used pre- or post-sale, the technology helps deliver a seamless buying and ownership experience. The team will soon be welcoming the new Renault Symbioz E-Tech and Dacia Spring into the showroom. Stop by to learn more about the cars for yourself. Please message Richard Smith if you would like to put our technology to the test. #ecommerce #automotiveindustry #automotivemarketing #digitalmarketing #virtualassistant

BYD’s 💰sponsorship💰 of UEFA EURO 2024 ⚽ was by far the largest statement of intent from the Chinese car brand since it entered the European market. The previous mobility sponsors of the competition have included Volkswagen and Hyundai Motor Company (현대자동차). One month before the start of the tournament, BYD had a share of the audience for all car brand websites of barely 0.35% in key European markets. As can be seen, sponsorship of the event—which had an estimated global audience of 5 billion 👀—had an immediate positive impact. However, the drop-off since then suggests that this bounce may only have been temporary. No doubt BYD is aware that building brand awareness is a long game. As the top-selling car brand in China (with 1.6 million sales in the first half of the year), they are well placed to take up that challenge. Indeed, when Toyota Motor Corporation ends its global sponsorship of the International Olympic Committee – IOC in the coming months, we will not be surprised to see BYD at the front 🥇 of the queue to become the event’s new mobility partner. Sophus3 would be happy to share more insights into the digital outcomes of BYD’s sponsorship of Euro 2024 with our eDataXchange partners. Contact Patrick Fuller to learn more.

The EV Index from Sophus3 for quarter two is published today. It suggests that the sluggish market in Europe for electric cars is heading towards a crisis point. The key observations: + Digital interest, as measured by traffic to EV model pages on car brand websites, fell in 5 of the 7 markets that we monitor. + Relative pricing between EVs and ICE (unusually) improved, although the adjustments were minor. + Infrastructure expansion remains adequate and is not, we continue to argue, the impediment to EV acquisition that many insist. + Tariffs on Chinese EVs will slow adoption as the market awaits affordable EVs; the measures are likely to prove counterproductive in a number of other ways. + Changes to the political landscape at a European and national level has introduced uncertainty on the policy front. + Further slowdown in sales during the quarter means that divergence from mandated targets is a problem for manufacturers and governments that can no longer be ignored. Read the full commentary here: https://lnkd.in/dJ9gdzhF Be sure to follow Sophus3 on LinkedIn to receive future insights. (The EV Index is calculated from three data sets: consumer interest, choice/affordability, and the availability of charging infrastructure. A score of 100 represents parity in the ease of purchase and ownership of an EV compared to an ICE vehicle. The Index is published quarterly for the European Big 5 markets, The Netherlands and Norway.) #evs #electricvehicles #electricandhybridvehicles #EVIndex #automotiveindustry #automotivemarketing #digitalmarketing #analytics

🇳🇱 Automotive digital benchmarking platform launches in Netherlands 🇳🇱 The Netherlands has been added to Europe’s leading auto digital benchmarking service, Sophus3 eDataXchange, allowing brands to compare their digital performance against market averages. The move is in response to client demand and reflects the importance of the Dutch market as a test-bed for new retail strategies, particularly for electric vehicle sales. eDataXchange was launched in 2002 across the major European markets of Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK. Today, it has 22 participating brands, accounting for more than 90 per cent of passenger vehicles sold. Monthly reports include a personalised scorecard (sample below) that highlights market changes and relative brand performance across different metrics, including digital market share, sales funnel performance, share of search, share of social media and more. Scott Gairns, Sophus3 managing director, said: ‘We have already seen some fascinating results from the Netherlands as brands experiment with new business models. It is just one of many eDataXchange innovations as we support auto companies in developing their direct-to-consumer proposition.’ To find out more about participating in the project, or to further explore the performance metrics we collate, please contact our head of insight on patrick.fuller@sophus3.com #automotiveindustry #automotivemarketing #digitalstrategy #digitalmarketing #analytics #evs #electricvehicles #netherlands

Heart break for England yesterday, but a huge day for Spanish sport with a Wimbledon title and a fourth European Football Championship. Throughout Euro2024 we have been closely following the fortunes of the event’s major car brand sponsor, BYD EUROPE. Chinese manufacturer BYD was almost unheard of in Europe a year ago (with just 0.02% car market share in June 2023), but they have been steadily growing their profile since then and their sponsorship of this tournament was a major statement of intent. Our analysis during the tournament showed that match days corresponded with spikes in Google search interest for the brand. Including match days, tournament sponsorship correlated with an 89% uplift in search interest for BYD across the Big 5 European markets (blue line on the chart below). However, if we analyse the net effect throughout the tournament, the uplift in interest was only 35%, what's more in the last two weeks of the tournament this had declined to be very close to the pre-tournament trend (green line below). We will be releasing a more in-depth analysis of this performance for our clients in the next couple of weeks where we will go deeper into how successful their sponsorship was in driving greater engagement across the brand’s digital channels and in which markets it was most effective. Follow Sophus3 to receive future insights, or get in touch to learn more about our analytical services and engagement technologies. #automotivemarketing #sponsorship #euro2024 #evs #electricvehicles #automotiveindustry #analytics

Good luck to all those watching the football tonight ⚽ Of course at Sophus3 our main focus will be on the advertising 🚗 We will be releasing our last post in this series on BYD EUROPE next week and we will be distributing a longer form impact assessment to our eDataXchange members at the end of the month. Reach out to Sam Robson if you would also like to get a hold of this analysis. #automotivemarketing #sponsorship #evs

🚗 The Role of Automotive Publisher Sites in the Car Buying Journey 🚗 Automotive publisher sites remain a cornerstone in the online car buying journey, as highlighted by the recent Sophus3 ‘Premium Publisher Study 2024’. The data is clear: Auto Express, Carbuyer, Parkers, and CAR magazine attract more pre-journey and in-journey visitors between them than the combined total of the 22 car brand sites analysed. But there's more to the story. The study reveals that traffic quality on these premium publisher sites is significantly higher. Visitors spend more time and engage with more content compared to those on car brand sites. What's driving this difference? One of the key contributors to this is organic search, which brings in engaged visitors who are genuinely interested in research and purchase. In contrast, car brands rely heavily on paid channels, funnelling in a large audience driven by curiosity rather than intent. These findings pose important questions for car brands: are current campaign strategies truly effective in generating quality leads? Where should future efforts and budgets be directed? For a deeper dive into the study's insights, reach out to Sam Robson at Sophus3, Jim Burton at Bauer Media Group or Ben Cork at Autovia (now part of the carwow group). #evs #electricvehicles #automotiveindustry #automotivemarketing #digitalmarketing #analytics

BYD EUROPE's sponsorship of #EURO2024 continues to pay dividends. The results of the tournament so far have played nicely into their hands. 4 of the largest automotive markets in Europe are through to the quarter-finals, alongside the Netherlands, a key market for #EV adoption. However, we do see that in some markets the initial spikes in search interest are starting to tail off. The UK saw 43% less search interest on the day of their knockout game with Slovakia compared to the day of their first game. > Are viewers getting used to seeing the same advertising? > Is brand awareness growing and diminishing the instinct to Google? In our final post we will look back at the whole tournament and the wholistic impact of this period on the position of BYD in the critical automotive markets of Europe. Follow us now to make sure you don't miss out! #evs #electricvehicles #automotiveindustry #automotivemarketing #digitalmarketing #analytics

Despite setbacks, Chinese car brands are continuing to expand their European presence. A recent audit by digital automotive specialists Sophus3 identified 17 Chinese brands active across 13 European markets, with the number of active websites increasing by 28% in just the last nine months. In the fourth video from our ‘CX Strategies in Automotive Digital 2024’, Sam Robson, reviews the Chinese brands’ progress and suggests that this is a result of more than their widely cited price advantages. #automotivemarketing #digitalmarketing #EVIndex #evs #electricvehicles #China #automotiveindustry #tariffs The video, along with a transcript and explanatory data is also available within the Insight section of the Sophus3 website: https://lnkd.in/e9R96Ghx Follow Sophus3 to receive unique automotive digital insights.