At the WSJ, Gina Chon has a good round up of the recent efforts of car manufacturers to make better use of online and nontraditional advertising, including the creation of the Mudd family story for the Jeep web site (pictued here). Several factors are driving these innovations. First, print and broadcast are becoming less effective. Secondly, car buyers are starting their purchase research online. And thirdly, the car marketers really seem to be figuring this "customer engagement" thing out. Here are a few quotes from the article:

• In 2002, Jeep, which is part of the Chrysler Group, the U.S. arm of auto giant DaimlerChrysler, created online games to promote its vehicles. Mountain Madness, for instance, lets drivers save a town from an avalanche as they ride around in the 2005 Jeep Liberty Renegade. Jeep garnered 3.5 million registered users from its 10 online games, it says. "We were able to find out more information from the consumer than we ever did with direct marketing and other methods," Jeep Vice President Jeff Bell says.
• Although the 2006 Mercedes R Class luxury wagon didn’t arrives at dealers until September, the DaimlerChrysler brand began providing information about the car 18 months ago through its Web site. Mercedes said it received about 100,000 online requests for information on the R Class.
• For the 2003 launch of its Scion compact, Toyota Motor sponsored concerts in small venues and other events across the country in order to reach younger buyers. To attend for free, consumers had to sign up on Scion’s Web site.

WSJ.com: Car Makers Hone Their Pitch Online by Gina Chon (subscription required)

When consumers voluntarily try to obtain information about a product, they are more likely to provide information that marketers want, like age, salary and hobbies.