Mazda seeks partners for models’ community sites

Mazda is talking to major hotel chains and other leisure-related brands, with a view to making them marketing partners for its existing MX-5 community website and planned RX-8 site, as part of a major relaunch of its online activities from April next year.

Mazda UK customer relationship marketing manager Daniel Brown says the company is in discussions with a number of hotel chains about offering community members discounts on room rentals. Other potential partners are also “in the wings”, he says. Brown adds that partners will be chosen on the basis of their fit with Mazda’s “Zoom, zoom” marketing concept. “It’s about what you and the car can do to enjoy everyday life,” he says.

Mazda is increasing its commitment to building online and mobile user “communities” as it prepares to launch the new RX-8, after massive success with community-based content on the MX-5 microsite. According to Brown, the MX-5 site, launched five months ago, had 10,000 registered users in the UK alone within six weeks of launch, with thousands more across Europe.

The MX-5 site offers news, tips and other exclusive content – some of which can be downloaded to mobile phones – for owners, and will be the template for a similar community site for the RX-8.

The success of the MX-5 site has encouraged Mazda’s interactive agency, Syzygy, to appoint its first communities editor, Kelda Wallis.