audi brand awareness study, customer experience identification, and analysis

FROM

LUXURY

TO

PRESTIGE

BRAND

EXPLORATION

OF

T E A M 1 1 -‐ C H R Y S T A L C A I N S H I A R L A & M Y U R A N K A N G A

U N I V E R S I T Y O F F L O R I D A , I M B A F 1 4 I 2

Audi positions itself touting its technology (“Innovation through Technology”), strong

engineering (“Truth in Engineering”), speed, bravery (“Bravery. It’s what defines us.”), and

uncompromised luxury through its most recent ad with Ricky Gervais that closes with,

“Stay uncompromised.” Audi’s model offerings target multiple consumer segments while

seeking to provide customers with the world’s leading premium vehicles. Audi prides itself

as the progressive line within The Volkswagen Group. Further, Audi seeks to produce

models that anticipate clients’ visions and desires to provide sustainable, augmented, and

potential benefits to customers while minimizing service quality gaps.

Sprechen sie Audi?

Online Research -‐ Methodology

To increase our understanding of how consumers view Audi, online research was

conducted on vehicle consumer review websites such as Edmunds.com, JDPower.com, and

Autotrader.com. We extended our research to include social media sites such as Twitter,

Facebook, and Instagram to better understand customer sentiment regarding Audi through

social media activity.

Online Research – Vehicle Consumer Review Websites & Forums

Vehicle consumer review websites are typically organized by model; therefore, it was

difficult to perform specific searches such as “Audi.” However, through perusing various

Audi model reviews, we were able to identify keywords consumers used when expressing

their view about Audi. Some common phrases include “technology,” “performance,”

“luxury,” “sport,” “power,” “speed,” “engineering,” and “quality.” These identified terms

were subsequently used in our expanded web research (such as car forums) as well as in

our social media research.

We broadened our search term list to include “luxury,” “luxury vehicles,” “luxury sedans,”

and “luxury SUVS” in conjunction with competitor names to begin to paint the picture of

how Audi performs compared to competitors.

Generally, the sentiment surrounding Audi was positive. Many noted that Audis perform

well, are fun to drive, and exhibit great detail, quality, and workmanship. Some passionate

consumers reviewed their experience with their Audi vehicles:

• “I had no idea diesels were so much fun!” –Audi A3 review

• “You can feel the superior quality and craftsmanship in material, workmanship, and

engineering in every detail and step of the gas pedal in the Audi. I love the quick

acceleration in Sport mode and the refined executive styling! I look forward to and

enjoy driving it each and every day!” –Audi Q5 review

• “Great timeless design, wonderful interior design and material quality, great step in

height and the list goes on.” –Audi S5 review

Although negative sentiment was low, some commented on the poor multimedia interface

(MMI) and navigation system, sometimes describing it as being “unintuitive” or describing

instances where the maintenance feature of the MMI interface gave false notifications. By

comparing cross-‐website consumer keywords and comments, we collected the following

pros and cons list for Audi vehicles:

• Pros: Top-‐notch interior craftsmanship; sporty, nimble, & capable handling; Head-‐

turning style; Upscale interior; Superior cabin quality and design; Efficient and

punchy engines

• Cons: Below-‐average cargo capacity; Unintuitive control layout and navigation

Online Research – Social Media

We extended our research to include social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and

Twitter. Tools such as TagBoard.com were used to collate these three popular social media

websites and acquire a real-‐time snapshot.1 This method provided more insight into

consumers’ impressions toward Audi vehicles. Further, we used tools like

SocialMention.com to gather sentiment information regarding Audi’s brand. Our social

media findings were consistent with car forums and vehicle consumer reviews: people are

passionate about Audi’s vehicles, excited about future advancements, find them luxurious,

fun to drive, and often describe the R8 as their “dream car.”

The two photos above come from Twitter and Facebook, respectively. The photo on the left

1 #tagboard, “About Tagboard,” Tagboard.com, Accessed: July 1, 2014, https://about.tagboard.com/overview.

depicts a gentleman capturing a luxurious watch and “2 fine cars” including an Audi. It is a

great representation of the how consumers associate Audi’s brand with luxury, quality, and

good workmanship, matching the depicted watch. The photo on the right is consistent with

the consumer reviews that describe Audis as fun or exciting to drive. A blonde woman is

driving her Audi and hashtags #Audi #convertible #cruising, along with #funinthesun.

She clearly views her Audi convertible as a key piece to her fun and happy day.

The photos below are from Twitter, Twitter, and Instagram, respectively. The first two

photos show consumers capturing candid pictures of the Audi R8 in action. The first post

speaks positively about the curvy body design. She hashtags #Audi #R8, then describes this

car as being her “dream car.” We have included the second photo because this type of post

was one of the most common in our online social media research. The vehicle is described

as “beautiful” and again as a “dream car.” The third photo depicts an Audi TT at either a

product reveal or car show. The picture was posted with hashtags #AudiTT #audi

#quattro. The post says, “This one will be sick!!!” demonstrating the general anticipation of

Audi’s up-‐and-‐coming products due to their passion for design, technology, and

engineering.

We were careful to not only include the highest echelon offerings from Audi in our social

media search. We also wanted to know what people were saying concerning the more

affordable models such as the A3, S5, A6 and Q5. We found that the same level of pride is

shared in these models as well. Many photos showed consumers washing and various

angles of consumers driving their cars. The two photos below demonstrate that consumers

still view these models as strong products from the Audi line. Both of the photos below are

from Instagram. The first depicts an A3 with the tagline, “Got this bad boy back on the road

today” with hashtags #Audi, #A3, #quattro, and #beast. The second photo demonstrates

the speed of the more affordable models. The tagline is “Just doing a lousy 200kms on the

autobahn” with hashtags #audi #A6 #200kms #autobahn.

In our general social media research, we found few negative posts surrounding Audi;

however, we needed to devise a means of measuring customer sentiment. Enter the online

tool SocialMention.com.2 This tool collates various websites, micro blogs, forums, and social

media sites across the web and allows users to search for specific terms. It has several

different algorithms that help produce statistics about the search term including:

• Strength – the likelihood that your brand is discussed in social media. The algorithm

captures phrases mentioned in the last 24 hours divided by total possible mentions

• Sentiment – ratio of comments that are positive compared to comments that are

negative

• Passion – measure of the likelihood users will repetitively post keywords

• Reach – measure of range of influence; number of unique authors talking about your

brand divided by the total number of mentions

• Average Time Per Mention

• Last Mention

• Top Keywords – most frequently used keywords and the number of times they are

mentioned

• Top Hashtags – most frequently used hashtags and the number of times they are

mentioned

With these metric definitions in mind, SocialMention.com demonstrated that at a specific

point in time, “Audi” had 100% Strength (or likelihood that it was discussed in social

media), 7:1 sentiment (7 positive posts per 1 negative post), 20% Passion (percent of

repetitive posting about Audi), and 95% reach. On average, users were posting about Audi

every 14 seconds. The most common keywords were “audi,” “billionaires,” “chrome,”

“Porsche,” “gold,” “nurotag,” and “sportback.” The most common hashtags were #audi,

2 socialmention*, “Frequently Asked Questions,” SocialMention.com, Accessed: July 1, 2014, http://socialmention.com/faq.

#quattro, #pdk, #porsche, #discovery, #functionandform, #whisleterwheels, #sosw,

#audiR8, and #functionform.

Finally, we wanted to use social media to determine the “voice” of Audi’s brand in

comparison to its competitors. To do this, we used a proprietary tool (Python programming

language based software) to “scrape” information from Twitter. We searched for instances

when luxury car brands were mentioned on Twitter. In two days, over 200,000 mentions of

luxury car brands were collected. This data was then visualized in a tool called Tableau.3

Each spike was noted along with the time that the most comments occurred. Over this

sample, the Audi brand experienced the most mentions of its own brand as well as the

highest spike compared to other brands. Therefore, the voice of Audi among social media is

at the top of its class.

3 tableau software, “About Us,” Tableau Software, Accessed: July 1, 2014, http://www.tableausoftware.com/about.

Online Research – Implications & Recommendations

Through our online research, we have found that Audi is a leader when it comes to social

media presence. Audi maintains 14 verified Twitter accounts. Among these Twitter

accounts, Audi shares company news, interacts with people for customer support, and even

makes appropriate jokes that uphold their brand image with consumers. For example,

recently, Justin Bieber was spotted driving a Cheetah Spotted R8. @Audi responded to this

post with: “Look Away. Just look away.” Further, Audi maintains a handful of Instagram

accounts; most popular is @audiusa, where it focuses solely on posting photos of products.

They do not announce promotions, contests, or deals on their Instagram page as many

other corporations do. Yet, they have a high engagement and ‘like’ ratio per user and per

photo. Further, they post once a day, maintaining their momentum and presence on

Instagram.4 We believe this approach has been effective and has proven itself through the

findings we have presented. Audi has been able to achieve high sentiment, high reach, the

highest number of mentions, and high customer engagement and interaction even without

the need to solicit customer engagement through tangential methods like promotions or

contests. Instead, customers have shown genuine love and appreciation for Audi as well as

ownership pride by incorporating vehicles into their lives. Our recommendation is that

Audi continue to maintain their dominant presence and vigilantly seek new strategies to

improve their voice of the customer.

4 Bamburic, Mihaita, “Instagram is Used By 40 Percent of Big Brands, but Only Audi Uses It Correctly,” BetaNews, Inc., Accessed: July 9, 2014, http://betanews.com/2012/08/09/instagram-‐is-‐used-‐by-‐40-‐percent-‐of-‐big-‐brands-‐but-‐only-‐audi-‐uses-‐it-‐correctly/.

Treffen Audi-Kunden

Qualitative Study -‐ Methodology

An understanding of the general online customer sentiment towards the Audi brand

allowed the research to expand by directly speaking to consumers. In depth interviews

were conducted with 11 customers with varied ethnic, age, gender, and vehicle ownership

backgrounds. The questions that guided the interview process were developed based on

our findings from the online research. Gaps and areas of interest guided our question

selection. Our goal was to identify customer brand perceptions, images, awareness,

associations, loyalty, and the general personality that people project upon Audi.

Qualitative Study – Interview Sequencing

The interview questions were presented to participants in a systematic manner. First

customers were required to answer demographic information to categorize responses.

Participants were not notified that they would be questioned about Audi or vehicles until

the appropriate questions were presented, alleviating biases. Next, top of mind attributes

related to two of Audi’s primary goals – Prestige and Quality – were requested. An ideal

description of a vehicle was requested to identify baseline traits. Participants were then

directed to mention their top of mind vehicle brands followed by luxury brands to identify

perceived competitors. To capture consumer opinions on the greatest competition,

respondents were asked to rank the luxury brands in terms of quality. Next, we wanted to

delve deeper into consumers’ perceived brand personalities and understand the

psychological, functional, and product feature benefits sought in vehicles, along with the

personal values customers expected. To achieve this, we presented questions that

requested traits, characteristics, and associations with particular vehicles and luxury

brands. Animal characteristic and human attributes were also requested as a deeper

explanation of how people felt about luxury vehicle brands. To conclude interviews, we

introduced questions directly related to the Audi brand. We used brand recall and

recognition questions to capture information that may not be at the forefront of customers’

minds. We were particularly interested in identifying: key associations by requesting a

single word describing the brand, awareness of ads with any memorable scenes, asking

about related brands and global location ties for brand hierarchy recognition, and relative

competitor knowledge including related rankings on perceived sales values, performance,

and popularity.

Qualitative Study – Customer Interview Results: Top of Mind Attributes

Seeking the meaning that customers extract from the word ‘Prestige,’ we found that quality

was closely associated as portrayed in the word map generated from interview results.5

Other notable results include money related descriptions, ‘honor,’ ‘fame,’ and repute.

5 Feinberg, Jonathan, “Wordle – Create Your Own,” Wordle.net, Accessed: July 9, 2014, http://www.wordle.net/.

Delving deeper into top of mind attributes, we found that customers envision impulsive

images of an ideal generic vehicle as a ‘sleek black sedan.’ Within the luxury car market,

consumers found BMW as the top of mind brand with Audi at a close second. The top four

brands are distinctively shown in the frequency word map below.6

Qualitative Study – Customer Interview Results: Brand Personalities

Our findings also showed that customers easily distinguish vehicle brands with human

attributes and animal characteristics. Audi was closely tied to a Cheetah/Leopard and said

to be fast and classy. Mercedes was distinguished as a Tiger as it is no longer the king of

luxury brands. BMW was said to be a Lion, being a dominant, powerful, and appealing

6 Feinberg, Jonathan, “Wordle – Create Your Own,” Wordle.net, Accessed: July 9, 2014, http://www.wordle.net/.

brand. Moving into Audi specific results, we found that people most likely described Audi

with a single word that related to the high cost or the style, sleek, sexy appeal.

Qualitative Study – Customer Interview Results: Brand Associations and Perceptions

When asked to about features that customers relate to attributes and associations with

other products or brands, we found that customers were well aware of Audi’s German

roots, engineering focus, inherently higher luxury prices, and the resulting quality. We

were pleasantly surprised to find that most interviewees also knew of Audi’s Volkwagen

hertitage, diesel engine offerings, and AWD exclusivity. Customers identified BMW and

Lexus to be competitors while estimating that Audi popularity was highest in Europe. Most

interestingly, many participants associated the Olympics with Audi due to the 4-‐ring logo.

When asked about advertisements, we were somewhat disappointed to find that most

people had not seen Audi commericials or did not recall/recognize any unique attributes.

However, standout memories for those that did recall were impressive LED headlights and

a Superbowl ad.

In terms of perceptions, participants identified and ranked several brands for popularity

and sales. We caputured the results of these perceptions using the perceptual map below.7

7 Nielson, Jake, “Perceptual Maps: A Step By Step Guide to Analyzing Value, Competition, and Opportunities,” The Innovative Manager – Management Tools for Innovative Professionals, Accessed: July 9, 2014, http://www.theinnovativemanager.com/perceptual-‐map/.

Customers correctly identified BMW as a market leader but were somewhat less optimistic

about Audi’s market standing and reach.

Qualitative Study – Implications & Recommendations

The qualitative study findings demonstrate that Audi customers understand the prestige,

quality, and engineering brand focus. Though the vehicles are perceived to be expensive,

customers show satisfaction with products that they receive due to workmanship, style,

and performance. German engineering has been viewed as an important selling point and

the Volkswagen heritage is generally appreciated. Customers are also well aware of Audi’s

competitors in BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, etc.

However, we have found that Audi’s commercials are failing to resonate with the consumer.

Tying the Audi brand with the Olympics has been identified as a major opportunity and

presenting an image of sleek, black, visually appealing sedans would boost the brand

image. Laddering techniques such as leveraging the inadvertent fanaticism surrounding

LED headlight technology and educating customers about the benefits associated with

luxury price tags would allow the company to reach more customers. Finally, Audi must

promote recent sales success and popularity to help consumers recognize their market

dominance and achieve top of mind brand status.

Wie sonst kann Audi Sie erreichen?

Quantitative Study -‐ Methodology

As we progressed in our research, a quantitative survey was distributed and completed by

69 out of 102 possible consumers. Our intent was to improve upon our findings with

information measures related to specific beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors

towards the Audi brand. To meet these needs, questions were posed to participants in the

form of a Qualtrics survey in a similarly ordered fashion as our interviews.8 The

questionnaire was authored with these needs in mind and addressed ideal locations for

Audi driving, likes/dislike about the brand, agreement/disagreement for imposed

attributes and associations, sources of brand improvement and expansion, prioritizing

luxury vehicle features, and identifying purchase decision criteria. Nearly 20% of the

participants own a luxury vehicle and 70% indicated that they were planning to purchase a

vehicle within 5 years. We had a 70/30 distribution of males to females with a fairly even

distribution of age groups ranging from 16 to over 51 years old. Questions were posed on a

6-‐points scale, ranking, or open-‐ended format.

Quantitative Study – Customer Survey Results: General Vision and Beliefs

Most consumers favored sedan and sports vehicle body styles, envisioned Audi vehicles

ideally driven in the Metropolitan during a night on the town or on the Autobahn, and

correctly identified BMW and Mercedes as the brand’s #1 and #2 competitors. In terms of

Audi’s strategic goals, participants strongly believe that Audi is a Premium brand, defines

innovation, serves as an attractive employer worldwide, shows continuous growth, and

shapes the brand through dealerships. An interest finding suggests that customers do not 8 Qualtrics, “Who We Are,” Qualtrics, LLC., Accessed: July 1, 2014, http://www.qualtrics.com/about/.

strongly associate Audi’s strategic goals with luxury, truth in engineering, or innovation

through technology. Finally, lower prices were cited as the single attribute that would most

appeal to consumers as an improvement on the brand/products.

Quantitative Study – Customer Survey Results: Open-‐ended Likes/Dislikes, Brand Associations, Product Attributes, & Purchase Decision Attributes

When asked to describe their strongest like and dislike for the Audi brand in a single word,

survey participants responded:

• Like – Beauty/Design and Performance • Dislike – Expensive/Cost

Customers were presented with brand associations and asked to rank them according to

the least and greatest agreement as to their fit with the Audi Brand (surprisingly the word

‘affordable’ received more identification than words in the least identification list).

Greatest Identification 1. Expensive 2. Luxury 3. German 4. Wealth 5. Sleek 6. Classy 7. Sophisticated 8. Fast 9. Beautiful 10. Overpriced

Least Identification 1. Suzuki (VW family) 2. Japanese 3. Honda 4. Nissan 5. Toyota 6. Skoda (VW family) 7. British 8. Scania (VW family) 9. Lamborghini (VW family) 10. World Series

The most and least appealing product attributes for Audi vehicles were selected as:

Most Appealing 1. Cell phone integration system 2. Transmission choices 3. Premium sound system 4. Electronic stability and traction

control 5. Engine size variety 6. Heated/cooled seats 7. Multi-‐zone climate control 8. Rear-‐view camera 9. Lane assist 10. Adaptive cruise control

Least Appealing 1. Electronic retractable floorboards 2. Video screens 3. Wooden accents 4. Chrome exterior trim accents 5. Decorative inlays 6. Heated/cooled steering wheel 7. Voice recognition 8. XM radio 9. Variable steering modes/Magnetic

shock technology 10. Auto-‐parking assistance system

Most importantly, customers reported the following ranked purchase decision attributes

for Audi vehicles. Hybrid attributes and dealership traits play a vital role in vehicle

purchase decisions.

Quantitative Study – Implications & Recommendations

The quantitative findings further confirm that Audi’s marketing, advertising, and

promotion campaign is failing to reach customers in terms of their awareness and

recognition. At the fundamental level, consumers do believe in Audi as a strong Premium

brand, and have begun to echo the executive rebranding strategic goals such as continuous

growth, defining innovation, and being an attractive worldwide employer.

Audi’s recent move to redesign their vehicles presents an opportunity to expand their

product line and appeal to a wider customer base. The following chart provides customer

impressions on the most desired new body styles.

Affordability still reigns, as customers are interested in a cheaper sports vehicle and

several hybrid options. Moving forward, Audi should focus heavily on their advertising

campaign to provide memorable images and reemphasize the brand’s core value such as

“Innovation through technology,” “Truth in Engineering,” the Prestige perspective, and

their 2014 market position as a dominant Premium brand. Technology, design, and style

have vaulted Audi to a strong brand equity position, allowing them to compete directly

with BMW and Mercedes. Consumers are beginning to internalize these congruities;

therefore, re-‐positioning would not be a suggested course of action. Educating consumers

on Audi’s brand heritage is all that stands in the way of their ultimate goal as the global #1

Premium brand and sustaining excellent brand equity.

audi brand awareness study, customer experience identification, and analysis

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