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Mazda CMO Brad Audet Shares How ‘Move & Be Moved’ Brand Platform Is Shaping Its Identity
  • Brad Audet explains how the brand platform Move & Be Moved reflects Mazda's purpose of enriching life in motion through intentional choices and human connection.
  • Audet discusses how Mazda is evolving from its "Zoom-Zoom" heritage by connecting the joy of driving to the joy of living.
  • The conversation explores Mazda’s marketing strategy, including how adding value through product, experience and brand shapes the customer experience.

IRVINE, Calif. (November 2024) – Mazda North American Operations (MNAO) Chief Marketing Officer Brad Audet joined Adweek’s Speed of Culture podcast to discuss Mazda’s evolving brand strategy, the inspiration behind its Move & Be Moved brand platform and how the company continues to build meaningful connections with customers.

Audet shares how Mazda is evolving from “Zoom-Zoom” to connect the joy of driving to the joy of living. He discusses how the approach extends beyond the vehicle itself, focusing on creating uplifting experiences through Mazda’s Retail Evolution dealer network, product safety, design and driving dynamics, as well as brand initiatives that enrich life in motion.

Audet reveals the meaning behind Move & Be Moved, which reflects Mazda’s purpose of enriching lives in motion and its commitment to being radically human and treating people with empathy. The platform captures Mazda’s belief that movement is not only about the joy of driving, but also about inspiring human potential and helping people pursue meaningful experiences.

Throughout the conversation, Audet discusses the importance of human-centric marketing, creating authentic content rooted in consumer insights and leveraging a transformed business model to strengthen the customer experience and drive desirability.

Watch the full podcast interview below.

Timestamps

[0:00] Intro

[4:44] Evolution of the Mazda Customer

[6:58] Mazda’s Brand Hertiage

[8:36] Moving Beyond “Zoom-Zoom”

[9:38] Premium Positioning and Emotional Connection

[11:36] The Dealer Network as a Strategic Advantage

[12:49] EVs, Hybrids and Consumer Demand

[15:13] AI in Automotive Making

[18:06] The Car as a Future Connected Experience

[19:00] Customer Insight and Social Content

[21:10] Creators, Communities and Social Strategy

[22:14] Career Lessons from the Agency World

[25:20] Persistence, Curiosity and Leadership

[27:47] Wrap-Up

Transcript

Matt: Welcome to The Speed of Culture. Up today on The Speed of Culture podcast, we are

thrilled to welcome Brad Audet, the Chief Marketing Officer of Mazda North America. Brad joins us to dive deep into Mazda's groundbreaking new brand platform, Move & Be Moved, which is reshaping the company's identity and forging deeper emotional connections with consumers. Brad, so great to see you today. Thanks so much for joining.

Brad: Yeah, thank you for having me on.

0:25 [From Agency Leader to CMO]

Matt: Absolutely. So I saw right before you joined as CMO at Mazda, you spent a lot of time working for their agency, which is called the Garage Team Mazda. And I know in the auto industry, it's quite common that agencies kind of create their own, I guess, pop-up agencies, if you will, to service a big brand like Mazda. And I know a lot of other automotive manufacturers have the same setup with their agencies. What do you think the benefit was working on the agency side, specifically focused on Mazda in terms of how it prepared you for the CMO role?

Brad: Well, I did cross the chasm, I guess, from the agency world into the client world into Mazda four years ago, right at the onset of the pandemic. And I think the agency experience was really important in setting the foundation. One of the things that I think you realize when you work at a manufacturing company or any large marketing company is they don't have the same level of creativity that creative agencies do.

And so as a CMO in an operation like Mazda, you can create inspiration across all the various business areas. And I think that part of it is really important. I mean, I was running the agency there at The Garage for seven years. Before that, I worked at a WPP team agency on another automotive account. So I had a really thorough understanding of the automotive marketplace and how to navigate to get the best out of the agency resources.

So I think one of the things that we've done is to try to reshape our capability towards a more modern marketing point of view, leveraging data and technology in a more sophisticated manner, which I think would have been a little bit more difficult if I had not had the experience beforehand.

Matt: Yeah. And almost like the inverse question I've always wondered is, in the advertising industry, agencies put the CMO on a pedestal and everybody wants to have dinner with the CMO and meet them in Cannes, et cetera. And now you're actually in that seat. I guess, what do you know now that maybe you wish you knew when you were in your agency days about the reality of a CMO and what's important to them?

Brad: Well, I mean, I think CMO's responsibility is value creation for the company. And I think sometimes when you're at the agency, you think, at least when I was at the agency working at Garage Team Mazda, I spent all my time thinking about marketing for Mazda. Even though I'm responsible for marketing at Mazda and I have customer experience in motorsports and PR, a huge plethora of different responsibilities, I spent a very small amount of time thinking about the agency. And it's not because I don't value the agency. It's because our business is growing increasingly complex.

[3:06] What Agencies Need to Understand about CMOs

Brad: There are more demands on the CEO in terms of creating orchestration and integration throughout the enterprise, making sure that the voice of the customer is represented in everything that we do. So, I think in that regard, had I known what the true challenges were of the CMO in any one of the other agency environments I worked in, I think I would have been able to serve them better.

And so, I think one of the things that I have been talking about with all of our partners in other forums that I've spoken at is talking about the importance of being empathetic and understanding the business dynamic that the CMO is going through because the agency only looks at it through the lens of what they're offering.

Matt: Yeah. And I think just to dissect what you're saying a little bit, because I ran an agency for almost two decades, and I'm guilty of that as well. You think about the lens of what you sell through. But you and your CMO, you talk about delivering value, and ultimately it's shareholder value, and ultimately it's growth. And that comes in the form of business results.

You're trying to move cars. If you don't move cars off the lot, then ultimately, you're next on the line. And I think there's a lot of things that contribute to that. It's product, it's positioning, it's advertising, it's how you work with operations, et cetera. And I think often agencies get disconnected from the business results, and they stay focused on the marketing results.

Brad: And they think very narrowly, to your point, about the channels in their capability areas versus saying to themselves, how am I creating value for my client's business versus making advertising or communication widgets? And so that transition, I think some companies are making that better than others, but I think there's still a long way to go there.

[4:44] Evolution of the Mazda Customer

Matt: Absolutely. So let's shift gears to your current role as CMO of Mazda. Talk to us about the brand of Mazda how it's kind of evolved over the years and who the ideal customer profile is for your brand.

Brad: Well, I think Mazda had largely been known and still is largely known in the United States for Zoom Zoom, sporty, fun to drive, and affordable. And you talk to anybody I ever meet, and they always have a Mazda story of their youth and a very delightful, inspiring story of the role of Mazda in their lives. So Mazda has a very strong heritage and a lot of equity and fun and stylish, but it almost comes across as too youthful for where the marketplace is right now. And I think we see the opportunity to take the brand, take the business into a more premium space.

And when I say premium, I don't mean luxury, but more premium, getting customers to pay more for the product because the brand provides them, with a strong emotional engagement, and strong emotional bond. So we have been over the last decade, transforming our brand under our kind of philosophy of brand value management, which has included how we redesign our customer experience in our dealerships.

So, we have 380 or so dealerships that have gone under what we call our retail evolution program, which is a dramatic transformation of the physical, space, but also the customer experience design. We've continued to introduce new products and increase the premiums of our products. And now lastly, we're bringing our brand platform to life in a more meaningful way for all of our customers and stakeholders.

So we're reaching out to people who live their lives with intention, who want to live a life well lived, who still want an engaging driving experience, but maybe want a bit more refinement, still desire a certain degree of utility. Crossovers are a very big space in the United States, and that vehicle utility is something that customers are demanding. So, we think we have a pretty good formula for success right now.

[6:58] Mazda’s Brand Hertiage

Matt: That's great. And of course, to get consumers to think differently about your brand or think in an evolved way about what Mazda represents you need to put out different messaging and I know that you have a brand platform Move and Be Moved, which is kind of a critical new phase in, how you overall build the brand? Talk to us about what that brand platform means and why you're excited about it.

Brad: Well, so Move and Be Moved is, I think, a summation of our purpose as a company to enrich lives and our promise of uplifting people and then our core values around being radically human, having a challenger spirit, and “omotenashi”, which is how we treat people with empathy. And I think it's expressed nicely as Move and Be Moved.

And while we've used Move and Be Moved a little bit as a tagline in certain instances, it's more of a multi-stakeholder inspiration and a grounding of what we want to give people. And I think the brilliance behind Move and Be Moved is it speaks to the joy of motion and all of the core characteristics that we're already known for, but it adds on that idea of human potential and being moved and going to new places and becoming one's best self and Mazda being a champion of that.

So I think what we're able to do in this environment with this platform is to continue to talk about the strengths of our product, but also open it up to how we appreciate our drivers, how we appreciate communities, how we appreciate society and the role and the value that we bring to everybody that interfaces with Mazda.

[8:36] Moving Beyond “Zoom-Zoom”

Matt: Yeah. So obviously you need to mention the unique selling propositions of the product and how the product itself is evolving. But I think the second part that you just explained is really about content to make people not just know but feel. So, when Mazda looks at content, and I guess throughout your entire stint of working on the Mazda brand, what types of content do you think are most effective at conveying the brand's purpose?

Brad: Well, I think mostly it comes through most authentically in the social environments, I think, where we're able to do audience-specific creative, channel-specific platform, specific creative. I think that always works very well.

I would say any of the work that we've done, the stuff that performs the best, and what we always go back to is the stuff that is born out of genuine customer insight. What problem are we solving for the customer versus what problem are we solving for ourselves? So that's always kind of been our rule of thumb as it relates to content development.

[9:38] Premium Positioning and Emotional Connection

Matt: Absolutely. So you mentioned earlier about dealers, and obviously, I think that's probably one thing that maybe outside partners don't understand as much as the importance of your dealer network. They're the front line for your brand. They're how most consumers can touch and feel your brand. And usually they're, interacting with dealers is a very critical phase of the funnel, at the bottom of the funnel.

How much of your time is spent thinking about and working with your dealers to make sure that the promise of the brand carries through to the dealer experience?

Brad: Well, I would say, look, our dealers are an incredibly valuable stakeholder. In an environment where a lot of automotive manufacturers have turned the cheek to the dealers and said, we're going to create new distribution channels, we've embraced our dealers as a key strategic advantage.

I mean, if you're going to be a radically human brand, if that's one of your values, then you need to harness the power of people. So we spend a fair amount of time consulting with our dealers, understanding our dealers' issues, and trying to work with them in partnership to grow their business. Because when their business grows, our business grows. So they are very important.

In Mazda's situation, unlike maybe some of the other OEMs at the factory level or the manufacturer level, we spend almost the same amount of money as our dealers spend. It's pretty evenly split. So, we very much believe that we need to be aligned, we need to be coordinated, and we need to work in the true spirit of partnership and managing the customer journey. And our dealers have been very receptive to that.

So I've worked around some different automotive manufacturers over my career, and I will say there's nothing like the relationship Mazda has with its dealers. It's a very genuine, trusting, and respectable partnership.

Matt: And is there sort of a two-way dialogue that goes on where you're hearing what the dealers are hearing from the end consumer, which then impacts, maybe the way that you tweak your messaging or think about your future as a marketer?

[11:36] The Dealer Network as a Strategic Advantage

Brad: Yeah. So, absolutely. we have a national dealer council. And we listen to their input. They collect input from all their dealer colleagues. So we very much believe as an organization particularly in marketing organization that if we want to enrich people's lives, if we want to be radically human, if we want to treat people with empathy, we have to be great listeners. And respond to the needs of people and how they're feeling about things.

Because at the end of the day, our value creation is about creating feelings with people. And the only way you can do that is by listening to people and then shaping the artifacts in your go-to-market strategy based on that listening. So we've spent a lot of time just listening to all of our stakeholders, customers, employees, and dealers to understand what motivates and moves them.

Matt: And in terms of the product side of the equation, Brad, I mean electric vehicles are so important to your industry. And the adoption curve is varied by both types of consumers and, frankly, the brands in your industry. Some brands are way further ahead and others take a more measured approach.

Where is Mazda along that continuum? And what are your hopes for the brands in the EV space moving forward?

[12:49] EVs, Hybrids and Consumer Demand

Brad: Well, we've taken a more measured approach to how we're handling EV in particular. I think we have a very good, multi-solution powertrain strategy and approach. We're putting more emphasis on different hybrid variants right now, which seems to be where the market is moving.

We're working on electrification, and that's going to be an important aspect of our business to the regulations that the governments and states are imposing. The challenge there is consumer demand is not there for a variety of reasons. It's still quite expensive. The infrastructure doesn't exist.

So we'll do what we need to do to always follow and deliver on the needs of our customers. That's the most important thing for us right now. And that's what's guided us over the last several years.

Matt: And just to take it even a step further, how do you see the industry evolving in areas like autonomous vehicles? Because that's something that obviously so many people think it's so far away. And then there are some people who would never go in a driverless vehicle, but then you have Waymo in LA and San Francisco where people are jumping in it all the time. So I'm just curious for your own opinion and Mazda's if they have a strategy and where that's headed.

Brad: Well, I think the adoption curve of autonomous driving is still somewhat TBD. It's even like where we are with AI right now. Some people will say it's going to fundamentally change everything in two years. Some people say five years, 10 years.

What I do know is that the amount of computing power required for AI and autonomous driving far exceeds the capacity that we have as a country right now. Then you throw an EV on top of it. And so you say, okay, can we effectively power EVs? Can we effectively power autonomously? Can we effectively power AI?

I mean, you hear about these self-contained nuclear power generation facilities being built by the likes of Google Amazon, and others. And I think I heard something the other day that an AI-based search inquiry takes 10x the power of a simple text line inquiry, right? On Google, it's

Matt: 10 times the power.

Brad: Yeah. So I think that there are a lot of infrastructure-related issues there that are going to have to be dealt with. I would just say, in the most simple sense, though, that Mazda is a company that celebrates the joy of driving and wants to be the champion for the driver. And so, we will likely always have a car with a steering wheel.

[15:13] AI in Automotive Making

Matt: I think that's probably the case for most manufacturers and makes sense. You mentioned AI. How do you as a marketer and as a CMO use AI daily? And what are some of the ways it impacts the way that you're going to market with some of your activations in the marketing and advertising realm?

Brad: We use AI in just about every facet of the business right now, whether it's in advertising technology, marketing technology, how we do our media mix modeling, how we do our audience analysis, how we manage it through analytics, creative variations, power personalization.

AI is essentially embedded in everything. And it's kind of funny because we have been using it for some time. But. It's only been in the last couple of years that people have started to talk about it more dramatically.

Matt: And it's been summarized, right? ChatGPT kind of brought it to the masses.

Brad: Yeah, I think so. And one of the things that we've done or are in the process of doing, too, I think where AI can be very beneficial is in using AI large language models to create brains, if you will, a brand brain, an audience brain that allows you to put a lot of data and information together and synthesize it easily.

So if you're looking for an answer, you're designing a brief, you're able to be a lot more efficient and I think a lot more pointed as a result of those tools being available.

Matt: Yeah. I mean, if you think about just the driver's manual that you get with a car, I think that every automotive manufacturer just gives somebody a chatbot that basically has been trained with the manual. Because while you use a manual, you want to get information if you could talk to it. And the manual should be built into the car. You should be able to ask the car how to fix something and it will tell you it's powered by the manual.

 

Brad: Yeah. I mean, there's going to be certain things where you have a legal obligation to disclose certain stuff. But if you think about a user experience standpoint in a car, audio enabled, frequently asked questions, just Q&A. How do I do this? How do I turn this on? When should I change my oil? I mean, there are a lot of things that you can do.

Matt: Was there lightning at flanking?

Brad: Yeah, exactly. But I think the role of the car can also expand beyond just providing information. I mean, if you think about the car as wearable in the future state, in a lot of ways, it could provide a lot more value to customers. And I think we're seeing some of those expressions in the industry.

Matt: You were talking right before the pod store about Apple and how great of a brand they are. And I'm personally fascinated with just the idea of like a car as a docking station. And CarPlay is such a great technology. And do you see like moving forward just the car plug into your personal devices? And it just kind of brings up whatever it is that you're interested in, whether it's music or the destinations you go to.

Like, how do you see, I guess, someone's data and a personal cloud of things they like connecting with the car? Is it just as simple as CarPlay? Or do you have thoughts on how that might evolve moving forward?

[18:06] The Car as a Future Connected Experience

Brad: Well, I'll give you my point of view about it, not the Mazda point of view. But I can't imagine where there's a convergence of these two different hardware platforms into a singular user experience. Right now, it's still largely disconnected. But I think we're only limited by our imagination in that space. And so the electric vehicle platform provides us with some unique opportunities that we don't have with mechanical platforms.

And so whether it's CarPlay or if it's some type. Of another bespoke interface, I think all of these things are quickly converging together where you'll create your ecosystem. Maybe you're not part of somebody else's ecosystem.

So I think that presents some opportunities as brand marketers of how you are controlling the customer experience in your role as providing a brand experience. What does that look like in the future state?

[19:00] Customer Insight and Social Content

Matt: Absolutely. So you mentioned earlier about social media, and obviously, it's a great platform, the platform to share content. And more and more consumers getting more and more content and things that dictate their buying decisions through social media. Gen Z, which is 27 years old, over the next five to 10 years, they're going to be a core decision maker and buyer for families and households.

And Gen Z, of course, is the first generation to grow up with the iPhone. They never knew a world that didn't have the iPhone. So moving forward, obviously getting into the, I guess, attention span of consumers who are staring at the phone all day is going to require you to work more and more with creators and people who dominate the attention span of people using phones.

How do you look at creators as part of your overall strategy in building a brand and getting your messaging across?

Brad: I think they're essential. I mean, I think creators are parts of communities. And I think brands to be successful now have to be able to infiltrate those communities and provide value to those communities. So actually, when we launched the video work for Move and Be Moved, there were several influencers.

Not creators specifically, but influencers that play their real-life roles in the television work. And we did that intentionally. We didn't celebrate them as influencers in their environment, but we brought them in as talent. And that was a different way of thinking about that. But what it did is it allowed us to kind of authentically tap into their communities. We've since gone back and have done more thoughtful kind of content against those various communities. But I think it's critical.

It's, everybody right now with their phone is their content creator. And the question is, what part of that journey do you want to participate in or with? I think that there are environments where it's easier for a brand to do that than some other environments. But it's one of those things that's ever-changing and ever-evolving.

It goes back to me a little bit of the notion of listening. You have to pay close attention to what those communities are saying and understand how you can help fight along with them. And that whatever cause that they're fighting for, right, or help them solve a problem.

[21:10] Creators, Communities and Social Strategy

Matt: Absolutely. You mentioned this earlier, but I think a lot of marketing goes bad. The focus is on a strategy or an approach where a brand just thinks about itself and how it espouses its story to consumers. And what you said earlier really stuck with me in terms of like, it's about what the consumer wants.

In the case of the creator, what does the creator want and how does your brand fit in to add value? Because once you do that, then you can capture attention and force your way onto them, force your attention on them.

Brad: I think so. I think it's really important that at least in our model, what we try to do is listen to what various communities are saying and then put artifacts into the environments that allow the consumers to create their variation, their personalized rendition of the brand.

I don't think we're in an environment anymore, given all the fragmentation, and all the different creator options out there where you can control the brand. What you can say is I kind of want to generally exist in this space.

And how do I get all of those people to help me get there? How do we take the journey together?

[22:14] Career Lessons from the Agency World

Matt: Absolutely. So shifting gears, as we wrap up here on you and your career, just looking at your career journey, you've worked at so many of the most prominent and iconic Madison Avenue ad agencies from BBDO to McCann to JWT, kind of along your way to finally ending up on the brand side in the CMO role.

And that is sort of like the classic, I guess, dream of most people entering advertising, they end up where you are becoming CMO for an iconic brand. What are some of the decisions that you think you made right along the way in the agency world, kind of moving your way up the chain, so to speak, to then have the gravitas and knowledge to be able to come into a CMO role on the brand side?

Brad: Well, I think there are a couple of things. One is that you have to be respectful of the business. And what I mean by that is advertising agencies, and marketing agencies exist to create value for clients' businesses. And if you have a stronger strategic orientation about what your contribution is to your client's value equation, then you're going to be much better and you're going to provide that client better service and you're going to get rewarded for better results.

And I think that's been a point of view that I've tried to adopt is to say, hey, I'm not a communications person. I'm a businessperson. And I happen to be an expert in communications. So I think that's kind of one thing.

I think the second piece of it is, is that we are in a business, both on the automotive side and on the marketing communication side, that is going through a significant and continuous evolution over the last 30 years. And it's going to accelerate even more so in the next 10 years. So I think you have to be a student and you can't give up learning.

I'm fascinated. Every time I go to a concert, I read a new article about everything that's happening. And it's almost difficult to comprehend it all. Well, take it all in. But I think you have to be able to evolve your mindset and evolve your capability.

And a lot of people, I think, sometimes get very comfortable in a certain kind of role or doing a certain kind of thing. And that oftentimes limits them. So I think curiosity is a super important piece of being successful. I think the last thing is, is just recognizing the power of people.

As you grow up in your career. You're often rewarded and promoted because of your contributions. And then at a point in time, you shift to being rewarded based on the contributions of your team and how you're starting to uplift people. And it was funny.

The other day on college game day, Nick Saban was telling a little story about how he was not a very good coach when he was at Michigan State because he was too transactional. He was all about winning or losing. When he started focusing his attention on making each one of the young men that was playing for him the best players, the best people they could be. Everything in this program started to change. And he's one of the most winningest coaches of all time right now.

So I think there's a key lesson in there. It's not about necessarily focusing on the goal. It's about focusing on the journey to get to the goal. And what do you need to enable that with the people that are on your team?

[25:20] Persistence, Curiosity and Leadership

Matt: Yeah, I think that's awesome advice. And speaking of advice. So say you are just leaving college and entering the advertising world, and you someday hope to be the CMO of a big brand. What advice do you have for younger people? And maybe you're seeing this in some of your more successful, impactful younger team members. In terms of where they should focus. The areas they should be spending their time on to set themselves up for a successful career.

Brad: Well, I think you have to be persistent. That's a really important piece. Because it's easy to give up or to become overwhelmed. Because it is a very dynamic business. And there's a lot of change occurring. And I think if you can adopt a mindset that allows you to be intellectually and emotionally nimble. And responsive to your environment. You're going to have a much greater opportunity.

I think a lot of times people internalize too much. Or have maybe almost too much perfection. And too much rigidness when they think about how they manage themselves. And they look at things in a very linear kind of way. And there is no linear career trajectory. It's a series of tacks. If you're a sailor. You got to play to where the wind is.

You have to move to where the wind is. And you're going to have some setbacks along the way. And that's okay. And I think the younger generation of people right now probably have a slightly different mindset. About company loyalty and things of that nature moving forward in their careers. So I think that's one thing.

The other thing I think is really important is you got to spend time with yourself. And it's easy to want to give your entire self to your job and your company. But you have to make time for personal enrichment. And I think that's super important in the complex world that we're navigating right now.

Matt: For sure. And also they say to be yourself. Everybody else is taken. And I think the older and more I guess confident I got as a person. I found that my emails at work didn't sound that much different than my emails in my personal life. I felt like I no longer needed to be working with Matt and at home, Matt. It was just Matt. And that was enough. And I think some people

feel like they need to fit in, some type of mold. Earlier in their career. To fit in and set themselves up. But the reality is if you're just authentic to yourself. That's the best form for you. And ultimately that's going to come out anyway. So you may as well embrace it.

Brad: Yeah. I agree with that for sure.

[27:47] Wrap-Up

Matt: So to wrap it up here Brad. I mean is there a mantra or saying that you can think of that kind of summarizes your career journey? You've shared so much knowledge. But I want to know if there's anything that comes to mind.

Brad: I guess just for myself it gets back to the persistence of never giving up. I mean we all face a lot of headwinds and different challenges. In our lives. And I never really aimed at being a CMO in my career. It kind of just happened.

I'm delighted that I've had the opportunity to work with so many amazing people and dealers here at Mazda. But I think persistence. Because as you said. Like you have to be your best self. And as long as you know that you're doing what's good for you. What's right for you. Then I think that you'll always find an opportunity to succeed.

Matt: Yeah. It's awesome. Well, I'm glad we persisted in getting you on the podcast. Because it was an awesome guy. And you are going to offer a lot of value to our listeners. So thanks so much. And I continue to be a fan from afar. And admire what you've been able to do at Mazda.

Brad: Great. Thanks so much.

Matt: Thanks so much, Brad. On behalf of Suzy and the Adweek team. Thanks again to the great Brad Audet. The CMO of Mazda North America for joining us today. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and view The Speed of Culture podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time. See you soon.

About Mazda North American Operations

Proudly founded in Hiroshima, Japan, Mazda has a history of sophisticated craftsmanship and innovation, and a purpose to enrich life-in-motion for those it serves. By putting humans at the center of everything it does, Mazda aspires to create uplifting experiences with our vehicles and for people. Mazda North American Operations is headquartered in Irvine, California, and oversees the sales, marketing, parts and customer service support of Mazda vehicles in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Colombia through approximately 795 dealers. Operations in Canada are managed by Mazda Canada Inc. in Richmond Hill, Ontario; operations in Mexico are managed by Mazda Motor de Mexico in Mexico City; and operations in Colombia are managed by Mazda de Colombia in Bogota, Colombia. For more information on Mazda vehicles, including photography and B-roll, please visit the online Mazda media center at news.mazdausa.com.

Follow @MazdaUSA on social media: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, and Threads.