Two trends that illustrate how consumers are adjusting to higher gas prices.

Hypermiling
The notion of “Hypermiling” isn’t new; but it’s a term you’re likely to hear a lot more of these days. Hypermiling describes “drivers of both hybrid cars and regular vehicles, who go to extraordinary lengths to get as much as they can from each gallon of gasoline, trying to surpass the EPA’s estimated fuel economy ratings,’ says hypermiling.com. The site credits the online communities of Clean MPG, a site devoted to raising fuel economy and lowering emissions, with originating the term.

So---Are Changes in Driving Patterns Permanent?
Peters says that past trends indicate that high gas prices won’t keep Americans from driving; they’ll just drive more fuel efficient vehicles. But an energy consulting firm quoted by WSJ is predicting that fuel consumption patterns could become permanent because consumers believe high gas prices are here to stay. Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy-consulting group says “2007 probably will represent the peak year of gasoline consumption in the
U.S. ”

What Marketers Should Do
Americans have a love affair with their cars unsurpassed by any other nation. If what the Department of Transportation and energy consultants say is true, long-term changes in fuel consumption patterns will impact everything from decisions about where to live, what job to take, shopping and recreation habits as well as discretionary spending. 

As marketers, now is the time to do some brainstorming about how these trends could potentially affect your brand and help you plan for long-term changes in consumer attitudes and spending.  

Midsize SUV sales were down a whopping 38% in May 2008 over May 2007, while car sales rose from less than 50% to 57% says the US Department of Transportation.

That’s bad news for big car brands GM, Chrysler and Ford. GM’s Hummer is experiencing a 36% national decline in sales and the automaker is shelving redesigns for its full-size pickup trucks and large SUVs including the Chevrolet Silverado, Cadillac Escalade and GMC Yukon. Ford has just pushed back the debut of their redesigned 2009 Ford F-150. The company is also cutting production of 90,000 vehicles, mostly trucks and SUVs. Source: AutoObserver.com.

A survey by Autodata confirms that higher gas prices are affecting all income levels. Sales of $40,000K+ vehicles are falling faster than the rest of the market: a 14 percent decline in 2008 ytd versus the same period in 2007. Monthly sales of the Mercedes S Class and Acura RL are dropping more quickly than lower-priced, similarly-sized vehicles such as the Chevy Impala.

So how are automakers coping? Chrysler is offering three years of subsidized gas to purchasers of new Chrysler jeep or Dodge vehicles. The program guarantees that customers won’t pay more than $2.99 per gallon for the first 12,000 miles they drive each year for three years.

The deal applies to most, but not all, of the company's vehicles and ends July 7. Whether the promotion is successful remains to be seen. Sales in May, the promotion's first month, were 25 percent lower than in May 2007.

All sorts of brands are trying their hand at gas-related promotions designed to entice purchases from customers.

Jack in the Box is advertising “Two Free Tacos Day,” to help relieve customer pain at the pump. Customers can take a gas receipt to a restaurant and get two free tacos. Callaway Golf is offering $100 gas cards with the purchase of certain clubs so “golfers can now get more distance out of their drives and their gas tanks.

For a limited time, Expedia is giving travelers $50 for FREE gas when they book a stay of 3 or more nights at participating hotels in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, and pay using a MasterCard® card. The San Francisco Giants are pitching $25 Chevron gas cards with the purchase of four view-level tickets for home games through August.

Radio stations, such as Kansas City (Mo.) radio station Q104 are ‘pumping’ ratings with gas promotions. The station bought $1,000 of gas and sold it off at $1.04. Even non profits such as Northern Ohio Regional Red Cross have started gas sweepstakes to lure donors.

It's happened before and it will happen again---the inappropriate pairing of an ad and content---in this case an ad for two upscale communities at website "PutYourFeetUp.com", inadvertently paired with a grisly story of severed human feet washing up on a beach in British Columbia.

Contextual advertising is the analysis of keywords and page content to match a page with relevant ads. Unfortunately, the algorithms that govern the placement of advertising versus page content can only filter out so much, and the result is the occasional creepy pairing seen above.

The companies offering contextual advertising, among them Google AdSense, Overture's ContentMatch, and Adsdaq as well as news and information sites and others are surely trying to find away to avoid these unfortunate placements. It's not an easy problem to solve.

So---does this mean you shouldn't use contextual advertising. Not at all. Just be aware that sometimes s**t happens.

Critics of online surveys say the respondents don’t represent the larger population, are not chosen randomly and because of that, results can vary widely from poll to poll. The Director of Polling at ABC (DIS) News calls them “poll-taking clubs.” Ouch.

However, despite the criticism, more companies are relying on the web to poll “multitudes” of people in part because it can be done “quickly and cheaply.”
Source: BusinessWeek

A just-released study from “The Email Experience Council” (EEC) says emails optimized for image blocking positively impact revenue by raising the roi per dollar spent on it to $52.69 from $48.29.

The study of email design practices of “104 top online retailers”, and 472 marketers revealed that “more than 50% of the images in promotional emails are routinely blocked by email and web mail programs,” and “23% of retailers send emails that are completely unintelligible when images are disabled.”
Source: eMarketer

During 2007, the average U.S. home regularly
watched just 16 channels per week despite an average of 186 channels they received via cable or satellite. I wonder how long consumers will continue to pay for channels they don't watch?

In terms of programming, variety shows were the most popular, followed by situation comedies and a “catch-all category” that includes “reality shows sports, animation and quiz shows…”
Source: MediaWeek

Travel, hotel and other ‘supplier’ websites are increasing their share of hotel bookings by 3% at the expense of online travel agencies such as Expedia and Orbitz. A recent comScore study found that consumers are not only booking on hotel sites, but are increasingly choosing economy over premium brands. As a result, marketers are opting to spend more advertising $ on economy brands and fewer on premium brands.
Source: ComScore

The leaderboard, that ubiquitous 728 x 90 banner, is, well, the leader in online ad sizes, garnering 61.2% of all impressions. In distant second place is the medium rectangle, garnering 23.1% of all impressions. Source: Center for Media Research

United Airlines has grounded “Ted” their low fare “airline-within-an-airline” brand extension that was positioned to take on low fare competitors such as Southwest, JetBlue, Frontier, AirTran and others. Sign of the tough economy or poor positioning? Probably both.

Even without a tough economy and rising gas prices, it always seemed like a long shot that an established full service carrier could move nimbly and cheaply enough to compete successfully against discount carrier upstarts. Source: BrandWeek

For many foreign companies, building a strong presence in the U.S., the largest and most demanding market in the world, brings instant credibility.

Four years later ING has become the "third-largest holder of consumer CD investments in the U.S. Click the source link to read further about the strategies that led to ING's success, as well as those employed by IKEA, Royal Bank of Scotland and Dyson.  Source: Harvard Working Knowledge

The New York Times notes that two of the hottest quotes in recent months---Bill Clinton’s tirade against a Vanity Fair article about his post-presidential life and Barack Obama’s comment about 'bitter' Pennsylvanians clinging to guns or religion---came from blogger Mayhill Fowler armed with a digital audio recorder. In neither instance---the conversation with Clinton, nor her attendance as a contributor at an Obama fundraiser closed to mainstream media—did Fowler identify herself as a blogger as a mainstream journalist would have been expected to do.

If she had, it’s unlikely she would have been privy to the unvarnished comments of Clinton and Obama. Is this a good thing? Will this lead to a relaxing of the rules for mainstream journalists? Will this promote transparency or will politicians simply (attempt to) exercise more control over their public utterances?