IMO, these third-party sites like AT and Cars.com would be irrelevant if dealers had better websites that built up the customer's confidence. But the industry lags in that area, so we have these other companies that have to do it for us.

After a customer finds a vehicle they want on a third-party site, they are checking out the dealer site. That's where the dealership's unique personality needs to show through to build up customer confidence.

I agree with Gerald's comment about the ad's message...

"Dealers are bad"...that's why you would need a Plan B in the first place, but with our product, you'll have confidence to stand your ground and therefore will not need your Plan B.

--sorry all, thread jack!--

Hey! Anyone going to NADA San Fran? We outta have a DR cocktail hour somewhere! Topic? World Domination in 8 easy steps, followed by a coming out party of Lightnup! hahahaa

We all got packed schedules, but you never know!

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

I'd wager everyone saw a brief dip in traffic starting on the 1st & 2nd; the entire country was preoccupied with this year's SB.

Our traffic took a nose-dive on Sunday and sprung back to life yesterday. Cars.com was lucky enough in their timing to choose this year to snag ad space - the extra eyeballs should (hopefully) be good for a little extra traffic.

The spots may have seemed forced in their attempt at humor - but I chalk that up as their method of reaching out to their biggest user group. Again, hopefully they connected.

HOT OFF THE PRESSES! Cars.com recently spent a whopping 2.6 million dollars per Super Bowl ad in their most recent attempt to gain market share in the competitive automotive online advertising business...

Success or Digress? You be the judge!

Here's the 'real' dope DealerRefreshers! No pun intended friends...

Cars.com Stats for my dealership

Times vehicles appeared in search results:
Feb 1 - Feb 4, 2008 = 17,128
Jan 1 - Jan 4, 2008 = 29,944

People Requesting Details On Your Vehicles
Feb 1 - Feb 4, 2008 = 539
Jan 1 - Jan 4, 2008 = 859

Total Contacts
Feb 1 - Feb 4, 2008 = 18
Jan 1 - Jan 4, 2008 = 23

America, You Be The Judge! Vote Now!

Success or Digress?

Not to hi-jack the thread Jeff but can you say CARFAX?
If they don't put dealers in a bad light I don't know who does, but hey it is working for them. When was the last time you sold a used car without a carfax?

Yikes! That is definitely not what Cars.com intended to portray. Good feedback Gerald and Jeff. I do see where you are coming from. I use to sell cars myself, so I know the stigma and frustration. My take from the commercials was... we were trying to convey, that by going to Cars.com, consumers can find all the information on the vehicle they want(Carfax history, consumer reviews, ratings, finance information, location of the vehicle, pictures, etc) thus making them more "confident" in their purchase when they get to the dealership. I do see you view though.

I thought the commercials were entertaining at first glance, but as a sales professional, I was offended by both commercials. Both hinted at the long-held reputation of dealers being hard-nosed (where the head shrinker comes in) or so unwilling to work with the customer they need a good thrashing (Gorgon the fire/ultimate fighter guy). I really appreciate the confidence our parters in Cars.com threw our way. I think it did a lot to subliminally say "dealers are bad, Cars.com is good."

This is in stark contrast to the sensing session Cars.com hosted recently. I had the opportunity to take part in a survey of upcoming advertisement a few months ago. Myself and several other ISMs were presented with various ads and our opinions were recorded during Q&A. Nothing we saw came close to what they put on t.v. I think they should have put some talking lizards on.

Maybe we were the ones that got sold? I wonder if some Dealers were thinking about canceling cars.com held off because of the HUGE Superbowl kickoff? The marketing department has also been using that as a get on board now or miss out message.

After the buildup emails from cars.com informing me to get ready, I was beginning to think I would need to hire 20 more ISC's to handle the extra traffic. I thought I would see cars.com propaganda all over the place during the superbowl. I watched the entire game (with minimal breaks and didn't drink at all ;p ) and only remember seeing the one with the medicine man and the logo one time. Maybe I was expecting more because of the hype via emails, maybe more will become of this I dunno? Maybe they should have used a Badger or a Gecko since that is all the rage these days.

Alex -

If the purpose of the ad was only to get their name on TV, they could have run someone repeating the name "cars.com" over and over for 30 seconds. But the purpose it is send a message or paint a picture of the benefits of the product. I just don't think they did a very good job of that with either ad.

Average at best also.

Did it increase visits/search numbers for a day or two, yes. Was it a huge ego stroke for senior management at Classified Ventures, sure it was. Will it really bring that much measurable ROI to us as dealers over the next 6 months...... you're kidding right! Have to admit I'm not sure exactly where autotrader markets their site, if at all, in the Winter months, but they've had good exposure in the Spring/Summer in the past.

Lightnup-

I finally figured out what your name means. I thought it was meant to say "Lighten up guys", but I think it really means "lightn' up a joint" because you must be smoking something. Did you really analyze those ads that far? I think you were doing a little too much puffin' and not enough giving dude! Do you really think the Super Bowl audience is analyzing the ads that far? Do you think someone watching any television show is going to think that? Pass that sucker - you're about to burn your fingers!

I wasn't particularly impressed with the commercials. I agree with Jeff, they were "average at best".

What did impress me was the fact that Cars.com ran two of them. I didn't see any for Autotrader.com. (If there were any for Autotrader I must have been away from the TV). To me, this is indicative of the online classified marketplace. The more dealers I speak with, the more have been signing up with Cars.com and more have been cancelling or downgrading Autotrader.com. It's obvious Cars.com is making a real run at capturing more market share, and I think they're doing it effectively. A few years ago it was Autotrader.com that was branded EVERYWHERE. Now I feel like I'm seeing more Cars.com branding. I know Autotrader.com likes to do most of their stuff during the summer months, so we'll have to see the numbers by the end of the year.

McCoy,

If you like what I say, it'll be constructive....if not, it's BS, as Alex refers to it.

Okay, here's my take on the two cars.com ads (and I would have the same concerns if they had been AutoTrader.com ads): What was the point?

If, as the ad says, Confidence Comes Standard when one uses cars.com, the shopper would have no need to bring along an elaborate Plan B. In my opinion, it implied exactly the opposite: the shopper wasn't very confident in cars.com, so he felt it necessary to still bring along the medicine man and the psychotic fire dude.

If I ruled the cars.com advertising world, I would have had the customer talking to his Plan B characters at home, explaining to their pouting faces why they couldn't come along to the dealership like they used to when car buying time came around (showing flashbacks of previous times when Plan B was used), because he no longer needs them now that he has used cars.com to do his research and found the right car at the right price. THAT would have exemplified confidence on the part of the cars.com user. Maybe at the end have the medicine man shrink the fire-guy's head right after the shopper leaves for the dealership, "I told you not to tell him about cars.com!" Then the slogan: Confidence Comes Standard . Whatever, just thinking out loud.

At any rate, I thought for the nearly $6 million paid, the message should have been clearer and more forceful. That's my $0.02 cents worth, and I won't even charge cars.com for my advertising consulting here.

For their sake, I hope the return is worth the investment. Time will tell.

These two commercials are the kickoff of Cars.com's 200 million dollar 08 advertising campaign. The commercials will be followed by 6-8, maybe more, newer commercials throughout the year. Since the game was the most-watched Super Bowl ever with 97.5 million viewers and second most-watched American television broadcast ever, I think the effort Cars.com is putting forward for its participating dealers has to be applauded. I do work for Cars.com/Tribune, so I am interested in what everyone on DealerRefresh thought of them. Even biased Lightnup, although I am sure he will have nothing constructive to say.

Big Mistake on aols part vast as the worst of all car dealers using their
services nothing but nightmares to deal with .They advertize cars at low
ball prices And dont even have the car when you get there,isnt
that against the law ,Bait and switch?

It occurs to me (like most in this blog, I'm sure) that the dealers actually "own" the inventory and photos...not Cars.com or AutoTrader.

Therefore, anyone who can "aggregate" on behalf of the dealer could easily show "all" the inventory. This benefits the dealer, of course, who wants as many as possible to see their inventory and provide the contact info. As an in market buyer, I'm very dissatisfied with the current search aggregation sites. Hard to use and slow (my $.02...you may not agree). If Vast can provide fast/easy search with photos and prices, they will quickly make a serious dent.

I do like their simple interface and fast search...despite the buzzwords.

Without breaking out my tin foil hat, it is interesting this relationship has eventuated when a former AOL executive is the CEO at Autobytel/MyRide powered by VAST.

When I was at ABTL we were under the impression this was to be exclusive to ABTL. Even then they were touting that MyRide would have the largest used car inventory on the Web. Interesting now to see it's basically everyone other than 'Trader and Cars will now have a huge used car "vehicle" to sell to their dealers.

BTW, when I was at ABTL pay for performance meant the more you pay the higher in the waterfall your listings will come up.

Jason,
I don't know how to tell you man but...

Your site needs a makeover from one of those marketing "touchey feely" GUI gurus (and so does mine!!). This is not a flame, just a comment from a peer in the trenches.

Joe

sorry - as soon as I see the "rich" / "robust" (and similar phrases), I immediately ignore everything else..
Coming from a programming and IT consulting background, nothing sets me off more then vendors and consultants using these absurd nonsense terms..
"with our rich interface and robust feature set blah blah blah blah"....
I AM impressed with their technology - but they do it a huge dis-service by resorting to such stereotypical IT marketing fluff..

The big thing that vast brings to the table is their spidering technology. Its this technology that scours the internet and pulls inventory from all sorts of sites. This is why they have 3 million cars.

I met with Vast last week at NADA and came away really, really impressed. Their partnerships have the potential to be a major disrupter in the traditional automotive sites. It is so rare to see a company have more than vaporware - most of the stuff I see like this is really easy to poke holes in and Vast was rock solid. This is going to get interesting!

Hmm... if I remember correctly Vast.com business model is paid search placement... i.e large classified providers pay extra to get the listings up high in the results... much like Yahoo organic placement... I wonder if same "robust optimization technology" will be in play at AOL.com...

man... how do I get the 'in' like Jeff? LOL

Good job Jeff

Very insightful and makes sense. Thanks again Jeff for keeping us updated on the up and coming trends in the market!