Personalized Videos Showcase Products for AOL Autos and Toyota
We recently named Toyota as one of our top 15 innovative and smart video players to follow due to the brand’s use of on-site videos, as well the recent launch of “ChooseControl” – a search tool delivering personalized video experiences showcasing a specific Toyota vehicle that best fits the online customer’s selected lifestyle attributes such as family size, occupation and hobbies.
AOL Autos is delivering personalized video experiences thereby boosting customer engagement levels. SmartVideo personalization can be based on consumer attributes (e.g., gender, historic product purchases, contract status) and behavior attributes (e.g., number of site visits, pages viewed), and can include or exclude customized scenes based on these attributes. AOL Autos and Toyota chose to personalize videos based on the customer’s selection of who they are and what they do:
- Who they are – single male, single female, small family, large family?
- Work lifestyle – professional, hard worker, long commute?
- Play lifestyle – outdoors, home/DIY/garden, music, shopping?
- Living lifestyle – big & tall, eco-friendly, inclement weather, pets?
And of course, the personalized video can be shared socially to Facebook and Twitter, such as the below tweet from a recent online shopper:
Our SundaySky team (development, creative and project management in both NYC and Tel Aviv) partnered collaboratively with AOL’s in-house video creation group StudioNow to create and deliver all possible video permutations. Eight Toyota models with 10 possible lifestyle choices created 67,000 personalized video permutations.
So why does this make sense right now? Well, we are living in the age of the connected customer, and it is necessary to innovate and evolve the customer experience. "We are thrilled to partner with AOL to bring consumers a new tool that will change the way people shop for cars, making it a more personal and efficient experience,” says Dionne Colvin, National Media Marketing Manager for Toyota Motor Sales, Inc. USA.
"This is truly the smartest car configurator available on the Web," said Tim Armstrong, Chairman & CEO of AOL. "ChooseControl marries AOL's technical vision and deep understanding of consumer online behavior with Toyota's expertise around consumer car buying preferences to put an incredible amount of information and decision-making power at consumers' fingertips."
What do you think about these personalized, SmartVideos for AOL Autos? What other brand or industry do you think could use a similar search tool and personalized video feature?