Automakers are investing billions of dollars in alternative-energy vehicles. But if a recent poll is any indication, the efforts are wasted on consumers who, for the most part, remain clueless.

When I was growing up, we used to sing the Chevy ad jingle, "We love Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet." It was a familiar chant, especially in the summer when we were actually outside playing baseball. (Just so you know, us '70s kids were tough. There was no softball or T-ball. I learned to play baseball with a standard-issue, horsehide-covered baseball like the pros use.)

"Hello, I'm the new Karl Greenberg" is how I went about introducing myself to the marketing and PR folks I met during the media days at the New York Auto Show, which occurred a few weeks after I took over the auto beat at MediaPost. It became comical after awhile to see what tack they would take in responding to me. About 50% said, "You look nothing like Karl," which is very true.

Visual marketing through traditional media remains an important part of automotive marketing (it's hard to watch even just an hour of television without coming across a car ad), but automakers have always been early adopters of next-gen marketing tools, and in many ways lead the way for other industries. As early as 2012, GM's Cadillac moved 25% of its marketing budget to digital platforms. By 2015, eMarketer declared that the U.S. auto industry was "ahead of the pack for digital ad spend."