Lexus vs. Acura: Email marketing showdown

I love reading car reviews, like CNET's Car Tech, Consumer Reports, Gearlog Car Tech, and Car & Driver.  So I thought I'd do a little auto review of my own -- but without looking at an actual car.

Within minutes of each other, I got emails from two competing luxury car manufacturers -- Lexus and Acura.  The emails struck me as being quite similar, because they were both promoting the launch of a new vehicle in each automaker's lineup.  Because of this weird coincidence -- two very similar emails reaching me at the same time and sitting back-to-back in my inbox, I started to do some comparing and contrasting in my head.  Soon enough, I was examining each message for email marketing best practices.

Which luxury automaker came out on top of the email battle?  Let's take a look:

Round 1: Subject line and sender

(Click here to see a screenshot of how the messages appeared in my Gmail inbox.)

Since the sender name and subject line are the first thing a user sees when an email hits their inbox, this is a very important attribute to any marketing email.  Both companies simply used their brand names as the sender name, a smart move.  Both companies kept their subject lines short, which is good once again.  But neither subject line got me very excited:

"Preview the all-new 2010 Acura ZDX"
"A glimpse of the future. Inside the 2010 Lexus HS 250h"

They're both OK subjects, but Acura's lacked sizzle, since "preview" isn't exactly an exciting term.  Lexus was a bit better, although "a glimpse of the future" borders on trite.  And although it's good that both companies are putting a header in their email for people who don't have graphics turned on, they missed the opportunity to put more sizzle in the message for people whose email clients show the first line of an email (like my Gmail does here).  Starting with "This message contains graphics" is wasted space in the inbox.  On a scale of 1 to 10, my scores for each: Lexus 7, Acura 6.


Round 2: Appearance

(Click here to see screenshots of the Acura and Lexus emails.)

The emails carry a similar look and feel.  Both companies are going for a clean and elegant approach, with dark edges of both messages, simple design elements, and lack of clutter.   Both messages' appearance are effective for what they are intended to do -- get people excited about these new models.

Lexus takes you directly into the cabin, where they're highlighting one particular feature of the car -- the central controller.  Also, it's not shown in my screenshots, but the Lexus email contained an animation in the image.  The "Adjust Sound, Plan Travel, Control the Climate" phrases appeared one at a time within the email.  That little piece of eye candy got me excited about this email.  However, Lexus drops the ball in a simple place: Anyone who isn't familiar with the HS 250h will want to see what the outside of the car looks like.  Skipping an exterior shot of the car is a mistake.

On the other side, Acura gets the exterior shot right in its email, but its interior image is the question mark.  I understand the "this is brand new" feel that the viewer gets by looking at the interior sketch.  But it screams "concept car" to me, not something that's going to be coming to my car lot soon.  The whole design isn't bad, but it's not as good as what Lexus showed us.

From a being pretty standpoint, the Lexus email is better here, with a beautiful photograph and a simple but attention-getting animation.  But no exterior shot of the Lexus is a dumb move, and that takes away from it.  Scores: Acura 8, Lexus 8.


Round 3: Content

You can tell that Lexus copywriters spent more than five seconds on their headline -- "Your index finger may develop an ego."  It's smart and a little funny too.  The animation I mentioned before leads perfectly into the headline.  The text is short but sweet, perfect for an email of this type.  But again, there's no mention of the car as a whole -- especially the fact that it's the first hybrid-only Lexus.

On the other hand, the Acura headline and subheadline are two giant yawns.  The first sentence of body text about the Acura Design Studio in Southern California is pretty weak too.  I see the connection between the design studio and the sketches of the car at the bottom, but it's too much for the reader.  They care about what the car looks like, what it does and how it performs -- not where it's designed.  However, the Acura copywriters redeem themselves somewhat with the rest of the body copy, which is quite descriptive and makes me want to see the car in person.  Scores: Lexus 9, Acura 7


Round 4: Call to action

In the Lexus email, the copy works together with the call to action to get the reader excited about the technology inside.  The "Learn about all the innovation the HS 250h puts in arm's reach" works well with the big arrow graphic next to it.

Acura's call to action seems disconnected from the body copy.  The call to action wording is uninspired.  On the plus side, it's obvious that Acura wants the reader to take an action, thanks to the blue underlined text to signal a link.  But thumbs up to Acura to mention the ZDX Facebook group, because that's the sort of move that can build long-term excitement for the new model.

The Lexus call to action by itself is better here, but Acura's Facebook group mention narrows the gap.  Scores: Lexus 8, Acura 7



Summary:

Both companies made a few minor miscues, especially on the subject line.  But overall I must say that these two emails got the job done.  They were definitely better than the majority of email marketing I see.  Lexus takes the prize though, mostly thanks to its superior body copy and call to action.  Final score: Lexus 32, Acura 28.