Like Progressive Insurance’s “Flo,” Jan from Toyota has been making a lot of appearances in the carmaker’s recent television ads. Jan is helpful, non-threatening, and very likable — all traits that Toyota wants customers to associate with the manufacturer.
Among the many “Jan” commercials that Toyota has been running recently is one where a mother approaches Jan at the customer service desk and engages in a conversation while using the eyes in the back of her head to keep her son from breaking or playing with anything that he shouldn’t. The ability to know what your children are doing without actually seeing them is a skill set that only parents, especially parents of young children, can relate to.
In another commercial, a couple approaches Jan, and the woman starts talking about looking for a car while the man walks away. Jan is able to anticipate the make and color of the car the woman is looking for, and when asked how she did it, she nods her head over to the man, who is rocking out in the exact model she described.
These two commercials fit perfectly within some other news that I came across recently: Twitter is working on rolling out geo-local advertising. This would allow advertisers to send special tweets to followers or others who are in a certain location. The ads can be used to offer special promotions to customers inside a retail location, or to alert people to a sale or offer while they are passing by a store. Millions of dollars are being invested in geo-local advertising, with the aim of getting the right ad in front of the right customer at exactly the right time.
Think of the level of detail that auto lenders could go into with a program like this. Deals could be promoted to customers when walking by specific vehicles on a lot. Lenders could even take it a step further and send out reminder tweets to customers to pay their bills when driving by a bank branch or a dealership.
Geo-local advertising is not going to replace mass-market advertising anytime soon (relax, Jan, you’re still going to have a job for a while), but as customers increasingly are searching for deals and offers that are catered to their likes and needs, lenders are going to need to look at strategies and platforms like geo-local to stay relevant.
