ONLINE ADVERTISING


Te intended effect of marketing online is to create what Annicchiarico calls a “mini brand experience”. For instance, the official Fiat Facebook and Twitter feeds publish images of different models alongside familiar catch phrases. Ideas of returning home or going on road trips evoke familiar, comfortable experiences reminding users of happy memories with their automobile. Te conversational tone, ultimately, encourages users to interact with the brand.


“Tose expandable and rich media formats end up being a mini brand experience,” says Annicchiarico. “Tey are designed to engage consumers, providing them with a strong brand experience outside of our brand portals.”


He uses the example of the Te Times newspaper. “If you are on Te Times website and you interact with our rich formatted pieces you can make an enquiry and we are more than happy for you to make the enquiry there or on our website. It’s about giving the consumers the option of engaging where they feel comfortable.


“Te important thing is the brand experience and enabling the consumer to make an enquiry if they choose. It’s no longer just about driving people to the fiat.co.uk domain to make an enquiry; we’re more than happy for people to source information or make an enquiry on any of our channels, websites or brand portals. It is important to provide choice and ensure people are aware that they can make an enquiry when they are ready,” says Annicchiarico.


Bots in the driving seat


Big brands such as Fiat are vulnerable to deceptive tactics from certain websites that sell advertising space through exchanges. One such tactic is to disguise the amount of traffic going to the website through the use of automated bots— web robots.


“Bots are an industry-wide problem that we have in the digital space around the visibility and viewing of advertising,” says Annicchiarico.


Te automotive industry has suffered in particular. In June, a report from Solve Media in its Quarterly Bot Traffic Market Advisory concluded that almost a third of


traffic to


automobile dealership websites was driven by bots: 22% derived from bots, while 14% displayed suspicious bot-like activity. Te report concluded that automobile companies could be losing up to $500 million every year in advertising to non- human traffic.


Another problem advertisers face is the association with websites facilitating access to


www.trademarksandbrandsonline.com Fighting back


Avoiding associations with websites facilitating pirated content can be a costly use of time and resources for brands such as Fiat, although there may be hope. Fiat entered into a partnership with online brand protection company Project Sunblock to help protect its brand by confronting websites purporting themselves to be ‘white- listed’ sites.


Project Sunblock has worked with the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit


on its


“ANNICCHIARICO AND FIAT AIM TO CREATE HAPPY ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE VARIOUS MODELS OF FIAT ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND ONLINE.” CLAUDIO ANNICCHIARICO, HEAD OF UK DIGITAL OPERATIONS, FIAT


unauthorised content online. Companies such as Fiat can find themselves advertising on such sites aſter purchasing adverts through exchanges.


Black and white


Annicchiarico explains that advert exchanges are divided into a ‘white-lists’ and ‘black-lists’.


“Te way this normally works is that within the advert exchanges there is a thing known as a ‘white-list’, which is something you’d normally advertise on and where there would be standards you would expect from the Te Times or Te Guardian newspapers,” he says.


“Within the networks they suggest that they advertise only on the white-lists, but there have been some smart fraudsters who have been masking their site to appear as a site on those ‘white-lists’.


“I am thinking of illegal download sites, where as a brand you do not want to be seen associated on those types of lines. Te way they do that is by masking themselves on advert exchanges and they have managed to get advertising on their site, which they get paid for. It is a constant battle to try to stay ahead of fraudulent activity because it is a technology-based thing,” he says.


Operation Creative, where adverts from brands have been removed and replaced with a banner stating that the unit is investigating the website due to allegations of copyright infringement.


Annicchiarico explains that Fiat worked with Project Sunblock to ensure it does not advertise on websites breaking the law.


“Project Sunblock was an example where we invested time and money to defend our position against this type of fraudulent activity. It was put in place to gather data and to try to minimise any type of fraudulent activity on those sites,” he says.


“I believe we were one of the first automotive manufacturers to actually deploy something like this,” he adds.


“We did a lot of investigation in to how we can defend ourselves against it. It is a difficult thing. It is a continuing battle.”


Moving the roadblocks


In the first season of Mad Men, the protagonist Don Draper says advertising is based on one thing: happiness, elaborating that “happiness is the smell of a new car”. In creating a mini-brand experience for potential buyers, Annicchiarico and Fiat aim to create happy associations with the various models of Fiat on social media and online. To buy a Fiat is not simply a choice of product, but an extension of you as an individual, is Fiat’s message.


“Tat is the beauty of the social environment. We’re doing advertising and getting momentum with our brand communication and obviously enticing people to come and spend time and engage with the brand in environments where we can communicate with them and have a dialogue with them,” Annicchiarico says.


Fiat and Annicchiarico understand the importance of advertising online and reaching out to potential buyers. But as digital channels offer new challenges, Fiat and other car brands will have to work diligently to ensure they are advertising in the spaces where they can reach their target audience. 


Trademarks & Brands Online Volume 3, Issue 3 21


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