Mazda to Consumers: Go Google Pontiac

Posted by Melanie Phung on Saturday, February 11, 2006 at 10:23 am

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Over a WebProWorld, it’s been reported that Mazda’s marketing people have taken advantage of the search-savvy Pontiac commercial with a rather crafty strategy of their own.

Mazda is buying PPC ads for the keyword “Pontiac” and inviting a comparison between Pontiac and Mazda. They are riding the coat tails of Pontiac’s SEM spending, since the latter is encouraging everyone to google them (If I’m using it as a verb, it’s lower case, right?). The organic positions are still held by Pontiac-related sites though, and the price of those PPC ads will go up as the two car makers jockey for top position. So while Mazda’s strategy is very clever, it’s not likely to yield them a huge amount of free or low-CPA traffic.