It doesn’t really matter whether someone is looking into buying a brand-new or a used car, this is going to be a big financial commitment for them. Lots of consumers also find that it ends up being a very sensitive choice for them too. Not only do they have to decide which kind of car is best for them, but they also have to consider where to buy from. This is where brand awareness and brand consideration.
Here’s one point that’s worth flagging—Germans on the whole are quite sceptical of new and unfamiliar brands and companies. They are also worriers when it comes to credit cards and use of their personal data. As a brand marketing manager for an online auto firm, this is something that will need to be taken into consideration right from the outset of your campaigns.
One thing that is promising is the fact that Germany is Europe’s number-one automotive market, both in production and sales. In fact, the Germans love their cars so much that 20% of total domestic industry revenue is generated by the car industry.
So, we know that Germans love cars but aren’t so keen on online shopping. Does one of these points ever overcome the other? To figure this out, we looked at the biggest online vehicle marketplaces in Germany to see how many people were aware of them and how many would consider purchasing from them.
Our survey consulted 1000 respondents, and here is what they had to say.
Brand Consideration & Brand Awareness: Germany's Online Car Market
12neuwagen
We asked our respondents an aided brand awareness question to start off with—which of the following brands have you heard of? 14% stated that they knew of 12neuwagen.
When asked if they would consider using this brand, 22% stated that they would. This shows that only a few respondents had heard of this brand, but there was a slight increase when it came to brand consideration.
If we go deeper into the results and look at different demographics, it’s possible to get further insights. For instance, when we split the results into sexes, it looks like 11% of females had heard of 12neuwagen while 12% of men had. For brand consideration, 23% of females and 22% of men said they would use the brand.
There’s no real difference that brand marketers can take from this. But what about if we look at different age groups?
Hardly any of our 56-65-year-olds had any brand awareness of 12neuwagen. Only 9% said that they had ever heard of them. There was a slight improvement with the younger age group as 22% of 18-25-year-olds were aware of the firm. Even though hardly any of the older respondents had heard of them before, 22% still said that they would consider using them. The same percentage of the younger participants agreed.
As there was little brand awareness of 12neuwagen, it implies that brand marketing managers could do more to target this age group with all of their campaigns. There is still obviously work that needs to be done to improve brand consideration for all ages too.
We also noted our participants’ locations too, so we can see how this affected their responses. For our aided brand awareness question, 11% of those who live in rural locations had heard of 12neuwagen before, and 11% from cities. When asked if they would consider using the brand, both locations came in with 22%. This shows that location doesn’t really affect either awareness or consideration of this brand, as these results reflect those from the general population.
From looking through our results, it looks like 12neuwagen doesn’t perform all that well with brand consideration. Even though there are notable improvements in the brand consideration department, there’s still a lot that their brand marketing manager could work on.
Autohaus24
The next brand we consulted our respondents on was Autohaus24. 28% said that they had heard of this one, and 31% would consider using them.
These results seem a lot more promising than the ones that came from asking the general population about 12neuwagen. However, they still aren’t great as they are still quite a way below 50%.
Let’s look if there is a difference across certain demographics.
Again, there is no difference at all between the two sexes. 26% of both men and women had heard of the brand while 31% of both would be happy to consider purchasing from it. This is exactly the same as what we saw with 12neuwagen—there was no change between the sexes, and brand consideration increased slightly with each.
Things start to get a lot more interesting when we take a look at the age demographic. 24% of 56-65-year-olds were aware of Autohaus24 but none of our 18-25-year-olds were. Similarly, 0% of the younger age group would consider using the brand, although 31% of 56-65-year-olds would. This is not great news for the brand as it shows that their branding and marketing aren’t targeting any young consumers at all. Even though it seems to be reaching older consumers, the brand awareness figure isn’t quite as high as the brand marketing managers might like to see.
There’s little to take away from looking at the location demographic as the results were exactly the same for those based in cities and respondents located in rural areas. 26% from both areas were aware of the brand and 31% would consider it. Even though we’ve only looked at the results from two brands so far, it looks like location doesn’t really have much influence or sway over either of these brand factors.
The patterns from all of the demographics from the Autohaus24 look the same from 12neuwagen, although they did score some higher percentages. The biggest thing to take away of course is the fact that Autohaus24 doesn’t seem to appeal to the younger target market at all.
WirKaufenDeinAuto
So far, you might have thought that hardly any Germans had heard of these online car market brands. Let’s see if the next few brands can change that!
We asked our usual aided brand awareness question to our survey respondents and an impressive 72% of the general population said they’d heard about WirKaufenDeinAuto.
When asked if they would consider using the site to buy a car, 42% agreed that they would.
Finally, it looks like we’ve found a well-known brand in the online car market! Although, there is a significant reduction when it comes to brand consideration which is something that brand marketing managers would need to work on.
How about the different demographics?
When asking females, 69% said they had some brand awareness. This jumped to 76% for the men.
So, it looks like WirKaufenDeinAuto is more well-known amongst the male population. This wasn’t reflected in brand consideration, though as more women said they would think about purchasing from the site—44% versus 41%. Even though this brand doesn’t seem to be targeting women quite as well as men, they must be doing something right if they are more appealing to their female audience.
Next, we can see that age doesn’t seem to influence the brand’s awareness or consideration. 72% of both 56-65-year-olds and 18-25-year-olds knew about WirKaufenDeinAuto. We saw the same pattern in brand consideration as 42% of both these age groups would use the site. This dip in numbers needs to be rectified as it looks like quite a few people know about the brand, but they wouldn’t consider using it in the future.
Once again, it seems that location doesn’t have much of an effect over the results of our survey. 72% of respondents from both cities and rural areas had heard of WirKaufenDeinAuto. 41% from rural locations would consider using it and there was a slight increase in consideration from those based in cities at 43%. This shows that there is still a major difference between brand awareness and consideration—it looks like people from both locations know about the site but aren’t all that persuaded to use it.
WirKaufenDeinAuto is the first brand that has a considerable brand awareness, but it still seems to struggle with brand consideration. Could this be because of the Germans’ underlying distrust of credit cards and online shopping?
Mobile.de
Once again, we pitted the same questions to our survey participants but this time they were about the brand Mobile.de. 81% of the general population had heard about them.
68% agreed they would think about using the brand.
This looks like a similar pattern to the ones we saw with WirKaufenDeinAuto’s results—even though quite a few people had heard of them before, they were still struggling to hit the high numbers in the brand consideration questions.
There were a few differences worth noting between the two sexes. More males (84%) had heard of the brand than females (77%). A similar pattern is evident in the answers from the brand consideration answers as more males (71%) would use the brand compared to females (65%). Even though there isn’t that much difference between the two sexes, it clearly looks like the brand is hitting its male target audience a lot better than women.
Remember how no one in our younger demographic had heard of Autohaus24? Well, that’s exactly the same with Mobile.de as 0% of 18-25-year-olds had heard of or would consider this brand. That may be bad, but things are looking considerably better for the older generation as 80% of 56-65-year-olds had heard of them and 68% would consider using them in the future.
It's unusual to see an online brand come in at 0% for brand awareness and consideration with the younger demographic as we often assume that the internet and online shops are mainly used by young people. That doesn’t seem to be the case here, though, and it could be the result of poor brand marketing that isn’t hitting this key target audience.
Once again, it looks like the location of respondents doesn’t really affect brand awareness or consideration. There was just 1% difference between those who live in cities (81%) and those who are from rural areas (80%). The result was exactly the same for brand consideration as 68% from cities and rural locations would consider using Mobile.de. It looks like most of the brands in our survey are truly online in that location isn’t having much effect on either consideration of awareness.
These survey results make Mobile.de. appear to be a strong brand as they have some really good results for brand awareness. Although, there is still a lot to be done if they want to start attracting more younger car buyers.
Carwow
Our next brand that we asked respondents about is Carwow. Surprisingly, only 4% of the general population has heard of the brand before but 49% said they would consider using it. This is a huge jump between the results.
If Carwow could increase its awareness, then the brand consideration could increase significantly—the signs are here that this could potentially be a very popular brand in the online car market.
This pattern can be seen again when looking at the differences in sexes. 4% of both males and females had heard of Carwow but a resounding 49% would consider it. Sex doesn’t change the results at all, and it looks like men and women agree about their thoughts of the brand.
Once more, we have a brand that hasn’t been reaching out to a younger target audience. None of the 18-25-year-olds had heard of or would consider this brand. 4% of the older demographic were aware of Carwow and 49% would consider using it. Once again, if the brand marketing managers could start to tweak their campaigns so that they reach the younger consumers, then they could really boost both awareness and consideration.
The same numbers come up when we look at the location of respondents. 4% of both cities and rural areas know of Carwow and 49% of both would think about making a purchase through it. Again, this suggests that location doesn’t have much of a sway on awareness of consideration in the online car market.
Even though Carwow’s repeated 49% brand consideration isn’t brilliant, it is notable as only 4% of the general population had heard of it.
Autoscout
When we look at the results of the survey for Autoscout, it’s obvious that this is one of the most popular online car market brands. Out of the general population, 88% had heard of it while 68% would consider using it to buy a car. These are certainly some of the strongest results from the general population that we have seen from this survey.
This is also another brand that doesn’t see any change when we look at the results from both sexes. 88% of both males and females are aware of the brand. It also appears popular too as 69% of both males and females would think of using it. This goes to show that the branding and marketing from Autoscout must appeal to everyone regardless of their sex.
Things start to change when we look at the results according to age. 88% of 56-65-year-olds were aware of Autoscout while 0% of 18-25-year-olds had heard of it. This might not be that surprising as we’ve mentioned brands before that the younger group haven’t been aware of. Things get interesting when we look at consideration, though. 68% of both the 56-65-year-olds and 18-25-year-olds would use this brand. Autoscout have amazingly been able to flip a pretty poor awareness within the younger generation and still persuade them to use their brand.
Once more, we see that location doesn’t particularly change things as an equal percentage of those in cities and rural areas are aware of (88%) and would consider (69%) the brand. As we’ve seen this from all of the other brands, this isn’t something that comes as a surprise.
It seems that Autoscout are a brand that are able to build on their strong brand awareness and turn that into equally good brand consideration. From this, we can also see that they might have done what some thought impossible—persuade Germans to start trusting online shopping!
The Survey’s Big Takeaways
It seems that some brands do struggle with a poor brand consideration, which could be down to the general distrust of online purchases and giving away personal data that is very apparent in Germany. However, some brands like Autoscout, have successfully bucked that trend.
If an online company can build a brand that builds trust with consumers, then regardless of their age, location, or gender, they should be able to build on consideration. We just need confident brands that have what it takes to change the German perception of online shopping for cars!
