Welcome to the third in our series of content marketing cage matches! This time we explore V8 Super Car brands and the way they are utilising content marketing to win the hearts and minds of motoring enthusiasts.

1. The battle of the V8 Super Car brands.

2. Welcome to the third in our series of content marketing cage matches!
One of the best ways to learn how to execute effective content marketing
strategies is to examine what others are doing.
Join us as we soak up the mistakes and triumphs of major brands adapting
to meet their increasingly savvy digital audiences.

3. The battle of the
V8 Supercar brands
To mark the 2013 Bathurst 1000 V8 Supercar race we’ve decided to bring
the race down from the slopes on Mount Panorama and into the content
marketing arena.
And we could not have picked a more contentious year!
In 2013, Mercedes – with the Erebus Motorsport team – and Nissan re-join
the ‘The Great Race’ to challenge the prevailing rivalry between V8 giants
Holden and Ford.
Who will win the car race? Who cares!?
Let’s see which of the four brands have turbo-charged their online content
marketing to win the hearts and minds of the revheads.

4. The battle of the
V8 Supercar brands
Vs.

5. Like any digital community, motoring enthusiasts relish long-form
online content like blogs.
Through blogs, car brands have the ability to connect with their
audience about all things auto. This drives affinity for the brand
and reinforces its image as both the ideal auto provider and the
champion V8 team.
Let’s see how the four companies are utilizing both their flagship
corporate blogs and their specialised motorsports blogs to
capture and engage their revved-up fans online.
Blog content

6. http://holdenhq.com.au/Blog content

7. Holden HQ is a great hub of information for anyone who owns or is looking to
purchase a Holden vehicle. It has articles about cars, check lists for your vehicle,
safety tips, behind-the-scenes stories, maintenance tips and road trip advice.
Posts are updated regularly, and it is easy to navigate between the four main
sections: Holden News, Charging Up: Volt, Your Holden and Manufacturing. The blog
includes an embedded Twitter feed, YouTube videos and links to Holden’s Facebook
page.
The Holden HQ blog provides an extremely helpful hub of content and succeeds in
positioning the brand as reliable, helpful and service driven.
Holden Heaven is a user-generated content website that is sponsored by Holden.
The blog covers fan events, races and car clubs. While the great content on this site
cannot be attributed to the Holden brand, the fact that Holden sponsors a user-
generated site demonstrates its appreciation for their fans and their willingness to
engage online.
http://holdenhq.com.au/Blog content

8. Blog content http://www.holdenmotorsport.com/

9. The Holden Motorsport blog is a collection of race news, events calendars, and
information about drivers and cars.
With content on featured drivers and teams, an abundance of photo galleries and
integrated social media streams, Holden has produced a fantastic range of content
to engage its audience’s interests and connect online.
The only negative is that there is no commenting function on the articles.
http://www.holdenmotorsport.com/Blog content

10. Blog content http://gofurtheraustralia.ford.com.au/

11. The blog section of Ford’s major website looks schmick, but it’s quite hard to find.
The link is hidden away in the “About Ford” section and does not really scream
BLOG. Maybe that’s because it isn’t really a blog after all.
The information is sorted through four categories: Our Vision, Our Vehicles,
Engineering, and Buzz. Clicking on any of these four categories makes the content
shift on the screen, but there really isn’t much content. There are some videos,
Tweets about Ford and CTAs that direct you away from the page to a signup form
and images, but there is no real blog content to be found.
Ford Australia is missing a huge opportunity to connect and engage with its target
audience about its products and service offering. The site offers no intrinsic value
to the site visitor except for owner manuals and servicing information.
By focusing predominantly on its own PR instead of the needs and desires of their
consumer base, Ford has produced a site that fails to move beyond the ‘hard sell’.
http://gofurtheraustralia.ford.com.au/Blog content

12. Blog content http://www.fpr.com.au/

13. The content on the Ford Performance Racing site is neck and neck with Holden
Motorsport. The site serves up news articles, driver and car information, a social
hub, photos and season calendars.
Like Holden, Ford has disabled the comment feature on articles, but the user
experience on the Ford site is much more interactive with numerous prompts to
connect and engage via social media.
Unlike Holden, the Ford Performance Racing blog site is heavily co-branded with
major sponsors Pepsi Max and Shannons (among others). For this reason, it is
unclear whether the design and implementation of the site was conducted by FPR
or Pepsi Max.
The result?
A pronounced dilution of the Ford Performance Racing brand when compared to
that of Holden Motorsport.
Blog content http://www.fpr.com.au/

14. Blog content http://www.nissan.com.au/

15. http://www.nissan.com.au/
Nissan does not have a dedicated blog site; it only has a newsroom and owner
information section on its major site. While the owner information includes some
good tips about maintenance, it is a static page that is not frequently updated.
There is no recently updated content besides the company news section.
Nissan could be delivering so much more value to both prospective and existing
customers.
Bring in the pit crew! A dedicated content strategy for their flagship site is required
ASAP.
Blog content

16. Blog content http://www.nissanmotorsport.com.au/

17. Lucky Nissan has its Nissan Nismo site! The site is split into two halves: the Jack
Daniel’s racing team and the Norton racing team. This split design is interactive
and provokes brand affinity and online engagement by prompting the user to select
their Nissan supercar team.
But what about the content?
Both sides of the site have news, calendars, driver and car information, as well as
social engagement tools. The quality matches up to what Holden Motorsport and
Ford Performance Racing are doing, making the race for blog content between the
V8 rivals a tight one so far.
Blog content http://www.nissanmotorsport.com.au/

18. Blog content http://www.mercedes-benz.com.au

19. Blog content http://www.mercedes-benz.com.au
Mercedes-Benz Australia has little to no content on its site. With no dedicated blog
area on the site, the only content available is PR-centric (and dry) news releases
about car models.
That being said, Mercedes does provide useful content to existing Mercedes
customers with full owner’s manuals available for download and some information
on servicing and finance.
The existing customer-focused content is a good start, but like most of the other
brands, Mercedes could be utilising content in a much more effective manner to
grow customer acquisition and brand advocacy.

20. Blog content
http://www.erebusmotorsportv8.com/

21. Blog content
Erebus Motorsport, which is championing Mercedes-Benz V8 supercars at this
year’s Bathurst 1000, has a good section on its website dedicated to their V8
supercar team, with driver profiles and an extensive news section that is regularly
updated. Although the UX is a little clunky and social media could be integrated
more, the Erebus team has made a great start.
The only problem?
Mercedes-Benz doesn’t appear to be involved in any way.
Like Nissan, Mercedes-Benz and Erebus are newcomers to the Bathurst 1000, as
such they need to grow their team following and increase their reputation to
become a major player.
By failing to partner more closely with Erebus on their content strategy, Mercedes is
missing out on a major branding opportunity. You’ve lost this round, Mercedes!
http://www.erebusmotorsportv8.com/

22. The verdict?
Holden wins!
Holden! The Holden HQ blog site includes great information for car owners
and enthusiasts that sets the brand apart from the other contenders. The
useful how-to guides, checklists and behind-the-scenes articles
demonstrate Holden’s commitment to engaging its customers with helpful
and interesting content.
By utilising content in this way, Holden can be seen as attempting to
position themselves as the go-to source for all things auto. This is backed
up by the sponsorship of a fan-generated blog.
The Holden Motorsport site is equal in quality to Ford Performance Racing
and Nissan Nismo, but Holden’s other blog efforts see the brand race
across the blog content finish line ahead of the rest.

23. As just about everyone is aware, video content is one of the most effective ways to engage online
audiences.
So let’s take a look at how Holden, Ford, Nissan and Mercedes Benz are utilising this tactic online.
First up, the numbers!
Holden + Holden Motorsport
Joined YouTube: 2008
Total videos: 183 + 175
Subscribers: 5910 + 1134
Ford + Ford Performance Racing
Joined YouTube: 2010 + 2009
Total videos: 85 + 38
Subscribers: 636 + 308
Video content
Nissan + Nissan Motorsport TV
Joined YouTube: 2011 + 2013
Total videos: 303 + 44
Subscribers: 2494 + 269
Mercedes Benz
No Australian Channel
It’s clear from numbers that Nissan is really making an effort to
catch up with the other car companies. Holden have a solid
subscriber base and number of videos but Mercedes is just not
targeting Australian viewers at all!
Let’s take a closer look at the quality of the video content being
produced.

24. Video content
http://www.youtube.com/user/HoldenAustralia
Holden’s subscriber numbers are solid, but the content is mainly PR/advertising and not much else.
There are only a few ‘redeeming’ videos on their channel that attempt to move beyond the hard sell and
interact with car owners online. The “How to change a flat tyre – Holden Vehicle Maintenance 101” video is
one such example.
The presence of this sort of how-to guide shows that engaging and providing value for viewers online was
once a priority. More of this sort of video content would improve Holden’s channel and offer its subscribers
more substance than scenic advertisements.

25. Video content
http://www.youtube.com/user/HoldenMotorsport1
The motorsport video content is mostly news-based, which is informative for fans tracking the racing drivers
and cars.
The Bathurst 2012 video series that was posted in the lead up to last year’s Bathurst 1000 was a really
engaging and interesting series that gave snippets of Holden Bathurst history in animated entertaining
videos. Awesome content!
Unfortunately, a campaign of this type wasn’t developed for this year’s Bathurst 1000, although this rather
humorous (or strange) video appeared just days before the big race.

26. Video content
http://www.youtube.com/user/fordofaustralia
Ford has the fewest videos.
Apart from the largely advertising based video content, the brand does have some behind-the-scenes
content showing how cars are made and introducing the viewers to team members. This video has high
production value and is a good example of how company profiles should be done.
The majority of the content however is pure advertising. Like Holden, Ford really isn’t delivering enough
engaging video content.

27. Video content
http://www.youtube.com/user/FPRAustralia
The FPR YouTube channel has been around for four years but only has 38 videos! Nine of those were
uploaded this year. The video content includes fan interviews at an event, behind-the-scenes footage with
drivers, and information about the cars.
The FPR content is great for the target audience, but there simply isn’t enough of it.

28. Video content
http://www.youtube.com/user/NissanAustralia
The Nissan Australia YouTube channel has a nice balance of original video content and advertising
placements, which makes the channel much more engaging than those of Ford and Holden.
Nissan’s video strategy significantly leverages their sponsorship deals to provide celebrity video content like
behind-the-scenes footage from Australia’s Next Top Model and review of cars from Mamamia’s celebrity
bloggers.
While still PR focused, these videos offer the viewer something that they would not find on TV: a unique
content experience! The focus of these videos is to engage rather than to sell, and for that Nissan receives
a green flag.
Nissan Australia uploads motorsports videos to its YouTube as well as the separate Motorsport Channel.
This is a smart move to broaden the brand’s audience reach.

29. Video content
http://www.youtube.com/user/NissanMotorsportTV
The Nissan Nismo Insider series includes great news style videos about all things Nissan Motorsport, from
driver profiles to the team transport vehicles. This series gives insights into the behind-the-scenes world of
Nissan racing.
Considering the brand only joined this year and has uploaded 44 videos, Nissan is doing a great job in
terms of content creation. The other car companies could learn a lesson or two about how to appeal to
YouTube subscribers.

30. Video content
Mercedes Benz Video Content
Mercedes-Benz has no localised Australian YouTube channel.
The brand is missing a huge opportunity to engage with the local market and create tailored content for the
Australian audience.

31. The verdict?
Nissan wins!
Nissan Australia’s YouTube channel offers unique and engaging online
content to its subscribers. Nissan has perfected the balance of advertising
and original video content on the channel to create something that is a
truly entertaining and valuable brand asset.
The Nissan Motorsport TV channel also utilizes the Nismo Insider series as
a way to give its subscribers insight into different aspects of the Nissan
Motorsport world. The brand is covering all bases, and this shows Nissan
knows its audience wants to be given content that is varied and
entertaining.

32. Social media is the key to connecting with car owners, prospective buyers
and motorsports fans. Having a strong social presence with a good
strategy in place can help the car companies engage with their audience
and build up trust.
How are they populating their pages and what are their real
time responses like?
Social media

33. Holden
How are they populating their page?
404,186 likes 0.02% engagement
Holden’s Facebook content mostly consists of advertising images and videos, but the page
is peppered with nostalgic photos and TVCs of older models for the Holden purists.
With extra links to Holden games, celebrity endorsements, and galleries of motoring events,
Holden’s Facebook page performs well. Followers show relatively high engagement levels
from post to post.
Holden has split its Twitter presence between @HoldenNews and @HoldenSupport, a good
move to direct car related concerns to a specific handle.

34. Holden Motorsport
How are they populating their page?
41,642 likes 0.13% engagement
Holden Motorsport is hitting all of the right marks with its social media content. With tons of
photos that champion the Holden Motorsport brand throughout decades, links to racing
videos and galleries, as well as unique Holden image macro memes, the Holden Motorsport
Facebook page is a great social media hub for Holden fans.
Only criticism? While it is apparent Holden is still trying to grow the community, the tense
instruction to “LIKE, COMMENT and SHARE” instruction at the end of every post is a little off-
putting.
Holden Motorsport is using Twitter to leverage content on their other platforms, and
interacting with its followers really well.

35. Ford
How are they populating their page?
84,600 likes 0.03% engagement
Ford is also utilizing its affiliated competitions, celebrity sponsorships, competitions and
kooky car facts to engage with fans.
Unlike Holden, however, Ford has steered clear of purely advertising based content and uses
this channel to showcase the way Ford as a brand interacts with people and the community
at large.
Ford has shown particular skill in leveraging events and sponsorships to grow brand
awareness and reputation – in particular the recent posts around the Royal Australian Navy
fleet review and Ford’s sponsorship of the event. Well done, Ford social team!
Ford is mainly using Twitter to link to its Instagram photos. The brand could be linking to
other content to improve its value offering.

36. Social media
How are they populating their page?
24,455 likes 0.07% engagement
The Pepsi Max Crew FPR Facebook page is a hub of photos, links to articles, news,
competitions, videos and racer profiles. It is a really great example of Facebook being used
through the lens of content marketing, focused on what the target market is looking for.
The FPR twitter is used for connecting with fans, linking to other content online and
providing real time race results. Great feature by FPR.

37. Social media
How are they populating their page?
7,030,588 likes 0.02% engagement
Nissan Australia has accrued a lot of likes – 7 million in fact! The sheer volume of people
who have engaged with this page compared to Holden and Ford definitely raised our
eyebrows, especially considering the comparative fan engagement on the Holden and Ford
pages. Vanity metrics aside, Nissan has achieved a great balance of content on its Facebook
page, bringing together humour, history and PR to form a consistent brand message and
experience.
A recent series of posts about the new Nissan Juke exemplifies a particularly savvy
engagement strategy, pairing images of the Juke with cheesy pop culture catch lines and the
overriding marketing tagline #ZeroApology. While the posts have garnered some negative
feedback, it has gotten people taking about the model and the Nissan brand itself.
Nissan rarely links to articles or news from the Facebook page, choosing instead to push
fans to product pages. A greater attention to content, whether curated or original, would add
an extra dimension to the brand’s presence on Facebook.
#Nissan are using Twitter to mainly promote the pictures seen on its Facebook page.

38. Social media
How are they populating their page?
39,838 likes 0.09% engagement
The Nissan Performance Australia page content also performs well. Revolving mainly around
photographic posts of Nissan Performance cars (past and present), the page consistently
links to external YouTube videos and the content on the Performance website but fails to
achieve the pizazz that Pepsi Max Ford Performance Racing has.
Nissan Motorsport also uses Twitter for live race results and behind-the-scenes photos. The
brand also links to its YouTube channel, leveraging that content on to Twitter followers.

39. Social media
How are they populating their page?
102,790 Likes 0.09% engagement
While heavily focused on promotional photography Mercedes-Benz Australia’s Facebook
content effectively engages the audience with questions about Mercedes models, colours
and most importantly ‘what it means to be a Mercedes driver’.
This approach emphasises the Mercedes driver as being a part of the Mercedes online
brand and community, fostering user-generated content and brand advocacy. A smart move!
However, the page only links to articles take you to the international website, rather than the
Australian one. Once again, more localized content is needed.
Once again, Mercedes-Benz fails to compete with other the V8 brands. It has an Australian
account, but hasn’t tweeted from it yet. Fail.

40. Social media
How are they populating their page?
37 950 Likes 0.25% engagement
Erebus Motorsport provides fantastic real time and personalised content. With hundreds of
photos, regular updates and quotes from the drivers and team, Erebus Motorsport is really
delivering valuable and engaging behind-the-scenes content to its fans.
Erebus are delivering real time race updates , behind the scenes photographs and
engagement with fans. Erebus once again proves its social media savvy with its Twitter
management.

41. The verdict?
Ford wins!
What a close lap! The four teams are neck and neck on social media
content.
Holden, Ford and Erebus are fantastic at engaging the motorsport
community, while Nissan and Mercedes strengths lie in interacting with the
consumer.
While each brand has demonstrated its social media skills, Ford just
scrapes through with the win for the consistent value the brand supplies
fans across multiple channels.

42. Social media
Real time response strategies
Holden directly responds to any negative comments or queries on its Facebook
page and moves them off the timeline and into a private space.
This is the perfect strategy to defuse thorny situations. Holden also uses
employees’ names at the end of the posts to personalise the response and
emphasise the people behind the brand.
Similarly, Holden Motorsport does a fantastic job of engaging with their fans:
answering questions, directing them to information off the page and interacting
in conversations. Great work!
Holden has made a great move by segmenting its Twitter presence between two
twitter handles: @HoldenNews and @HoldenSupport. This directs the queries
about service and car maintenance to a separate account, freeing up the news
account for information and positive messaging. Brilliant idea!

43. Social media
Real time response strategies
Although Ford often struggles to answer or direct customer queries in a timely
manner, they do respond in a personalised way. Like Holden, Ford follows social
media best practice and moves negative conversations to private spaces.
Unburdened by customer service requirements Ford Performance Racing
performs well at real time social media, answering queries, making jokes and
directing users to the content which answers their questions.
The @FordAustralia Twitter handle acts as both a broadcast and service channel.
They respond quickly to queries and escalate issues appropriately. Ford also
consistently engages their followers, retweeting, answering questions and
utilising hashtags. @FPR_Australia’s live race reporting is also impressive.

44. Social media
Real time response strategies
Nissan seems to consistently face customer service issues on their Facebook
page. Unfortunately they haven’t risen to the occasion with instances of on-page
interactions that should have been directly dealt with in a private message.
The responses are professional, but perhaps Nissan could take a few pointers
from Holden.
Nismo Facebook engagement is good! The team are interacting with users and
even using humour in their responses.
@Nissan_Aus is tweeting a lot of behind-the-scenes images, which offers fresh
content to twitter followers. They also actively engage their followers by
retweeting, answering questions and engaging in conversation. Like
@FPR_Australia @Nissan_MSport also features live race reporting.

45. Social media
Real time response strategies
The level of engagement on the other companies’ timelines is higher than on
Mercedes-Benz’s. That being said, Mercedes takes the time to answer each and
every comment and query. While Mercedes does respond to customer service
queries and correctly take the conversations of the page, they are definitely a
little slow!
Erebus Motorsport V8 have fantastic engagement levels on their page because
they consistently and quickly respond and engage with their fans in real time.
A fantastic job!
Merecedes has no localized Twitter handle pushing them out of this race!
Erebus Motorsport V8 post live race updates, behind-the-scenes photographs
and everything else in-between! Their real time engagement is fantastic.

46. The verdict?
Another close lap but….Holden wins!
Erebus Motorsport V8 come in at a close second in this round. Their friendly and
personalised real time social media approach has their fans raving!
However Holden must be given credit for effectively balancing both the needs of
brand advocates and disgruntled customers. By directing the maintenance and
customer service enquiries to the @HoldenSupport page, Holden is freeing up its
news page for broadcasting the brand’s message.
This separation shows that Holden understands the needs of its users, who want
to connect with the company via social media for both entertainment and service
troubleshooting.

47. Final scores
Category Winner
Blog content
Video content
Social media content
It’s been an extremely tight race with all four
brands showcasing triumphs and pitfalls in
their content marketing approach.
So who’s the Supercar Racing champion of
content marketing?
With their consistent approach to brand
messaging, their clear investment in valuable
content for their audience and their focus on
connecting and engaging their fans and
customers in real time, Holden wins this
content marketing race.

48. Wrapping up!
Three content marketing lessons from the Supercar brands!
1. Create and utilise content: If you don’t have a content marketing strategy in
place it’s time to develop one. People want helpful, entertaining and informative
content to help them make informed decisions about brands and products. By
failing to deliver content you fail to validate your brand.
2. Leverage partnerships: Mercedes-Benz failed to capitalise on an ideal branding
opportunity. Leveraging partnerships throughout content creation and distribution
can be a powerful tactic to increase brand awareness and reputation.
3. Be a truly social brand: Don’t just use social media as a broadcast tool, take the
time to post behind-the-scenes photos, engage in real conversations and
demonstrate that your brand is reliable and ready to facilitate service issues. All
four brands deserve kudos for their social media savvy.

49. Presented by King Content, Australia’s most-awarded
digital content marketing agency.
Check out our blog for more ideas, facts and advice.
www.kingcontent.com.au
@King_Content