I am a strong believer in VAuto and their pricing tool. I have used it for the past year and a half and my dealership has been the #1 Selling Certified Honda Dealership in the nation for over a year now. Dale is a dynamic guy and I am definately drinking the VAuto Koolaid (spiked with a lil Grey Goose!)

As for NADA this year I have to agree that there wasn't anything truly groundbreaking. I didn't find that next thing we are all searching for to revolutionize the industry. I did find all of my great friends, great parties, and generous vendors willing to wine and dine.The NADA Women's Dealer Breakfast had a great speaker/comic and the Honda party at City Hall was breathtaking. Cobalt had a nice party as usual and the Bel Air Partners Elite Dealer Dinner was an amazing event. Blue Flame 6 put on a fun bash too and I have to say the most innovative concept at NADA this year may have been the concept of the "threesome" party.

Great seeing you Jeff!

Jeff and Mark, perhaps the comment that "dealers are STILL LOST" has something to do with the meager representation of Hispanic marketeers at NADA 2008.

Since we're talking about a group whose long term vision often suffers from a "make this month" mentality, maybe a look at the present and not too distant future might jog dealers into taking consistent action in the Hispanic marketplace and the marketeers will step up in numbers at NADA 2009.

The current cumulative buying power of over 43 million U.S. Hispanics is close to $900 million and is forecasted to eclipse the $1 trillion mark in the next two years! While I haven't seen numbers estimating how much of this will be spent in the automotive sector, Hispanics adults are also more likely to purchase a vehicle in the next 6 months as compared with the general public (16% versus 12%).

Many dealers in "gateway" cities such as L.A., Miami, Houston, NYC and others may have caught on long ago, yet the Hispanic population continues to grow at faster rate than any other minority community in the U.S. and is moving into areas of the country not previously considered to have a sizable Hispanic presence.

In many states much of the growth is happening amongst 2nd and 3rd generation families as compared to growth generated through immigration and while assimilation increases the use of English as a primary language among Hispanics, an affinity for the use of Spanish is often shown in complex transactions, such as the purchase of car.

Language preference, age, education, income, country of origin, and length of time in the U.S. are just some of the factors to take into consideration when marketing to the Hispanic population and dealers willing to jump into this market will indeed need experienced partners to show the way.

While being shown the way though, dealers will need to make a commitment to the market by hiring Hispanic staff to serve customers in all areas of their organizations or run the risk of losing out on the opportunity created by effective marketing and generating a negative perception of their dealership among the Hispanic community in their area.

I agree with you Jeff... this industry is so ready for the next big thing.

DMS is sooo 80's, CRM is sooo 90's, websites too, 3rd party leads, eBay Local and AutoTrader are sooo early 2000-2003. Is it just me or is the pace of things accelerating?

Answer this though... bring along the next big thing... for argument's sake, what if it was transactional website capabilities (shopping carts for car dealer websites... ) how do you get the industry to engage? How do you get your dealers to get excited? Love to hear the ideas.

Mark Bonfigli wrote:

"I agree with Jeff, not enough hispanic marketeers for sure!
Being brought up in an "Argentine" household and all of my direct family from South America and Italy I think it has given me a better perspective on our market and the needs of the hispanic dalers we serve. Much more needs to be done so thanks Jeff for bringing up this topic."

Gee, maybe that's why AutoTrader.com now owns AutoMercado.com, the #1 all-Spanish online automotive marketplace (even the listings are in Spanish, unlike AT's competitors) and is integrating it into their solutions to help AT dealers better market to this rapidly growing segment of car buyers.

Brian - yep, I'm drinking the vAuto Kool-Aid....but it tastes better than Kool-Aid

Jeff - I had not looked at eLeads in months, and then saw their program again at NADA. It looks like they've added some cool features since I last looked: more campaigning stuff, call center stuff, and read-email notifications. I need to take a deeper look at them though - every time I sat down at their booth something came up.

I agree with Jeff,
not enough hispanic marketeers for sure!
Being brought up in an "Argentine" household and all of my direct family from South America and Italy I think it has given me a better perspective on our market and the needs of the hispanic dalers we serve. Much more needs to be done so thanks Jeff for bringing up this topic.

Mark Bonfigli | President, CEO

Dealer.com, Inc
[email protected]

Jeff,
O.K. I will try not to derail the thread. I know what your getting at with the data scraping and all the false traffic to sights, I.E.
Disclaimer on autotrader stating that their stats are probably not accurate.

Alex I take it that you use V-Auto? I am curious if anybody else is drinking the V-auto Kool-aid? I have been intoxicated from it the last few months. Dale's book "Velocity" is a must read!

"Dealers are STILL LOST!"

I have to agree with that Jeff. So are a whole lot of vendors! It almost seems like the bigger the vendor, the more lost it is. There are a few diamonds in the rough though. Dealer.com's Total Dominator looks strong (I'll be using it soon), we did enhance our Call/OneCommand package, DealerSocket and eLeads have made some nice strides in the CRM race, and yes, vAuto rocks! Unfortunately most of the other vendors I met with seem to be just trying to keep up with competition.

Nice write-up Jeff. Sorry to those of you I missed - I didn't get half of what I needed to get done.

Quick update...

Month to date compared to Jan 08 and Feb 07 on all relative stats I listed previously: down 10% - 20%

Maybe Im just in a market area similar to Lao's. Will update soon with precise numbers.

Lao,

What market do you work in? In Hampton Roads, VA the Cars.com participating dealers (as a group) have seen a 37% increase in the amount of calls to their dealerships and a 22% increase in the amount of emails. This doesn't even include the increase in traffic to their websites and the "print the ad/write down the info" walk-in customers. I just use phone calls and emails because we are typically only judged by those conversion rates. I'm pulling data from the first 11 days of January 2008 versus the first 11 days of February 2008 in Hampton Roads. That shows a significant increase in traffic the week after the game. I bet this increase in traffic only grows since the Super Bowl was just the beginning of a $200 million 2008 Cars.com advertising/branding campaign.

"Like auto trader and others, the gig is up for their providing the solution of delivery of customers to the store, at least in this economy"

I agree with this. We have been experiencing much more ROI from targeted local SEM. Is the internet classified model changed that significantly in the past 2 year period? Have others experienced this?

The thing that stood out the most to me is there was no increase in activity from Cars.com the week after the game. None what so ever and this is from a number of clients I work with.

Like auto trader and others, the gig is up for their providing the solution of delivery of customers to the store, at least in this economy. it is back to the old stand by, building customer loyalty and relationships with great service, sharp pricing strategies, catering to the customer's needs and finding that niche consumer who is doing well in this economy and can/will afford the purchase of a new vehicle.

This down cycle will probably last another 18 months or longer if we are faced with an another successful terrorist attack. I think Cars.com will wish they had that 2.6 million to cushion the economic impact and shortage of cash which is on the horizon.

Hey, the executives I am sure enjoyed the comp tickets for the game, the parties and had a chance to play with the big boys for a week so not all the effort was wasted.

The thing that stood out the most to me is there was no increase in activity from Cars.com the week after the game. None what so ever and this is from a number of clients I work with.

Like auto trader and others, the gig is up for their providing the solution of delivery of customers to the store, at least in this economy. it is back to the old stand by, building customer loyalty and relationships with great service, sharp pricing strategies, catering to the customer's needs and finding that niche consumer who is doing well in this economy and can/will afford the purchase of a new vehicle.

This down cycle will probably last another 18 months or longer if we are faced with an another successful terrorist attack. I think Cars.com will wish they had that 2.6 million to cushion the economic impact and shortage of cash which is on the horizon.

Hey, the executives I am sure enjoyed the comp tickets for the game, the parties and had a chance to play with the big boys for a week so not all the effort was wasted.

Thanks Ruby for your detailed response. Will be watching for ongoing results from the campaign in the dealership reports. Also...

Looking forward to the great articles written post NADA on DealerRefresh that help keep us all up to date on the latest and greatest in the biz!

To reply to Jeff's comments, I agree do a comparison in a few weeks to see your results from last month to this month. I am confident that you will see an increase. Since the Super Bowl our traffic has increased 20%.

"Let's see if they follow-up with continuing advertising to build upon the Super Bowl plug. For the benefit of us all, I hope so."

Not to worry, the Super Bowl was just the beginning of our $200 million advertising campaign for 2008. Immediately after the game we have continued with our advertising. This month alone we will be running almost 500 30-second commercials on top-rated networks such as ESPN, TNT, TBS, Comedy Central and Discovery Channel. In addition to that we have been running banner advertisements on popular online websites such as Yahoo, ESPN.com, FoxSports.com, CBSSports.com, NFL.com and SuperBowl.com.

This month is just the beginning. If you don't know who or what Cars.com is you will.

Hope everyone has a great time at NADA. Have a safe trip.

-Ruby, Cars.com

that site took a little time to pull off

My son showed me this. I think it's part of cars.com. I don't know what they are thinking with this.

Mitch - With most Internet users comfortable with using search engines now, I wonder if they search as general as they used to?

My thoughts are that someone in my market are more likely now to type in "kansas city cars" than just "cars". Maybe that's why Cars.com agressively targets my local keywords too.

To all -
I'll have to make it to next year's DearlerRefresh.com MeetUp 2009. Have a good time.

Alex,
I'll be there till monday eve. Saturday should work, Toss me an email and I'll get you my cell#.

Anybody else to NADA that want's to be in on the "call around" list, email me your name, comp., position and cell#.

We all got packed schedules, but you never know!

email me:
joe[dot]pistell[at]usedcarking[dot]com

Absolutely positively…Awful…..they should stick to newspapers!

I still don't understand the connection people make between an ad being "highly amusing or creative" and being "successful". The Cars.com ads were indeed average as far as creativity goes, but frankly they can't lose whenever they advertise because their domain name pretty much gets the message across on its own.

You want to find cars online? Cars.com. No marketing shpiel, no 30-second story... we got cars, the website is Cars.com, have a nice day.

I'd say that the small amount of creativity that did go into the ads actually took away from their effectiveness. I would've preferred the logo on black for 30 seconds and a voice-over, or a demo of the site. Not only is it unnecessary to tap into people emotionally when you're Cars.com, it's actually a marketing misfire.

It's a product's job to generate emotional ties to the consumer - Audi and Bud Light's ads were done appropriately, putting more concern behind an emotional tie than the actual product. But Cars.com isn't a product... it's a consumer resource, one step above newspaper advertising, and you all know what dealers put out in print ads: total garbage with big bright words like BLOWOUT and $99/MO. It's crap, and it works(when there's actually eyeballs to read it), because that's the level the customer is on when they open a newspaper. You have to know where your brand hits the customer mentally, and pitch your ads accordingly.

Whether or not Cars.com's ads made people laugh is of no importance whatsoever... their name was up there, and Autotrader's wasn't... that's all that matters. Let's not forget the notorious tendencies of people to remember the ads more than the companies who paid for them when there are similar brands running spots. I've heard a handful of people incorrectly attribute the Amp soft drink spot to Pepsi Max and vice versa. It's vital on Superbowl spots to be the only representative of your industry.

Jake- ok, to be fair will return in a few weeks and do comparison update.

Point being though, Cars.com paid $2.6 mil to advertise on the most anticipated advertising day on tv, one would think as a beneficiary of their product we would have experienced some sort of short term spike somewhere in the reporting results.

It was just an odd commercial. 'Out in right field' odd? I would say not even in the same ballpark odd. Good, bad? Let's see if they follow-up with continuing advertising to build upon the Super Bowl plug. For the benefit of us all, I hope so.

Would write the same if it was an ATC ad.

Jake - when it comes to Firinupaphatspliff....errrr.....Lightnup there is no such thing as a cheap shot. If he won't come out and say who he is, then he's free game!

Joe - I'll be there. Saturday night?

Jeff Larsen - I know you're just making a point, but I think to be fair you need to extend your date range beyond 4 days. Just for starters, the day of the week has a lot to do with traffic. Jan. 1-4 was a Tues. through Fri. while Feb. 1-4 was a Friday through Monday. Jan 1-4 was a week when the majority of people were back at work after vacations, and Feb. 4th is the day of the year when an estimated 1.5 million people called in sick. I'd be interested to see your end of month comparison though.

Also, I think the ad was more of a branding message than a "drop what you're doing and go to cars.com now" message. I'm sure some reps tell the dealers to be ready for the influx of shoppers, but the fact is, running ads doesn't create more car shoppers. It just (hopefully) makes them think of cars.com when they are ready for their next vehicle.

Joe P - Cheap shot at Lightnup, although funny!