"THE MAKING OF REGAL.COM"

Online - The BIG Idea - January/February 1997
by Bayard Saunders

Online and automotive history was made from Detroit on December 3, 1996, when the first public introduction of a new car occurred simultaneously live at a press conference (broadcast live on a private satellite network), and "webcast" live in cyberspace on a website open to the public via the Internet.

Gary "Webmaster" Smith of Buick was thinking about the new Regal brand and how Ron Zarella of General Motors wanted to see the brands differentiate from each other and target new consumers. The challenge for the new Regal was to reach out to younger "high-performance families" who need the room of a sedan but want the style and power of a sports car. It occurred to Smith, who is the "webmaster" responsible for all of the Buick brands' internet communications efforts, that this demographic desire fit perfectly with the demographics available online.

Another revelation came to Smith when he considered the history of the process by which new automobiles are introduced to the public. For most of the 20th century, information about new products has been disseminated via the media (newspapers, magazines, radio, television) and by direct marketing and promotions. Six months or so before the new cars are available, a select cadre of reporters is invited to an "introduction" or preview for the press, from which the "trickle-down" process of distributing the information begins. Smith also thought that online technology now allows the most immediate access to information we have ever had, and that this historic process is changing for other products introductions, so why not automobiles?

To its credit, Buick looked first to our "local interactive community" and its existing vendors who are following the lead of Regal brand manager, Roger Adams, in a new direction for advertising and communications. The collaboration for the live and virtual event, conceived and produced entirely by Detroit-based companies, includes the new Regal brand teams at General Motor's Buick division, McCann-Erickson Advertising, Miiacom, Inc, The Internet Factory, EDS, GM Cyberworks, Trio Communications, Projections, Inc., Grace & Wild Studios, and Morley Productions. Other companies, including Stroh's, CKS Interactive, Silicon Graphics and the @Home Network brought additional resources to facilitate Smith and Adams' dreams.

A website was created first, at http://www.regal.com, to provide general information about the event, to register early visitors to receive an e-mail reminder notice, to remind visitors to return to register to win a new Regal, and to facilitate the "downloading of plug-ins" (special free software users would need to experience some of the advanced multimedia during and after the event). As the event took place, the website expanded to reveal new pages allowing visitors to view the live satellite transmission, to interact with the designers and engineers in chat rooms, to watch other viewers on a network of twenty cybercafes around the country, and to experience some features and benefits of the car demonstrated in multimedia interactive modules where the user controlled the action. There was also some light entertainment and some in-depth product information, making it a rich, content-filled experience for all users.

For a month prior to the event, advertising in the form of print ads offline delivered some of the viewers, while the banner ads online and word-of-mouth delivered the majority. GM Cyberworks played a critical part in the synthesis of the media buying and technology delivery resources. Perhaps of more importance were the consumers' impressions of the change of the Regal brand image, merely by the association with the high-tech interactive world.

The live press conference itself was an impressive mixture of business theater, public relations, and television production. Under the direction of Rick Buzinski of Trio Communications, the entire production came alive as the "Regal Café," an actual internet coffeeshop setting by Gary Decker, complete with art on the walls any café would kill for (the coffee cup as interpreted by Picasso, Warhol, etc., ala the Absolut vodka bottle campaign). There was a stage for the presenters, and a very convincing brick wall that came tumbling down when Ed Mertz, former Buick general manager, drove the new Regal through it to reveal the car and his wild leather jacket. Surrounding the stage and audience was a network of computers featuring the website, and video walls and television monitors, and in the back was a control room that would have put NASA to shame (we're pretty sure the space shuttle was delayed because we were using all their equipment).

If you missed it, don't worry. This is cyberspace, and we do not have to all be in one place or tuned to the same channel at the same time to enjoy the programming. In fact, while EDS did deliver the Pulsat satellite version on-time, they had problems with the server at the scheduled broadcast time, and everyone online "missed it" live, but did access it immediately after the event, and for days afterward according to the computer logs. And it is still accessible and will continue to be updated as the cars become available to buy in the spring of 1997.

Once upon a time I knew an idiot who said we shouldn't do things just because we can. Now his company's websites have taken a giant step backward, and ours are helping to define the way new products are introduced... Success is the best revenge.

POSTSCRIPT: THE DEATH OF FREEMARK

Freemark Communications, one of the two companies in the race to bring you advertiser-supported "free e-mail" service, closed its doors in December 1996 citing lack of sufficient finances to compete in the marketplace with its rival, Juno. Too bad. Not just for the folks at Freemark, but for this whole industry.

As we search for effective models of advertising in an interactive environment, the Freemark model stood out. It was not time-sensitive; it displayed one advertisement per e-mail, regardless of when the user accessed it. Following the interactive paradigm, the control was in the hands of the user, and for that reason it was more effective in delivering the advertiser's message. The Juno model is easier for most advertisers to understand - like Pointcast and Backweb, it uses the "broadcast advertising" paradigm: ads are displayed for 30 seconds, regardless of what the user is doing, and rotated (they say) on an equitable basis. And like broadcast advertising, it counts impressions instead of facilitating the beginning of relationships with consumers on their own time.

We can only hope that Juno will realize the financial viability and benefits to both the advertiser and consumer inherent in the Freemark model as they move forward, after amortizing the cost of developing their proprietary system. It is unfortunate for the advertisers and consumers that we have to wait now for what we already had.