2009 JD Power Automotive Internet Roundtable Review - Red Rock, Vegas

[Alex Snyder]

Vegas, Social Media, JD Power Stats, OEM representation, professional atmosphere, and excellent networking opportunities were the highlights of 2009's #JDPAIRT << click for Twitter conversations.

I must state that I'm writing the rest of this from a dealer's stand-point (mine in particular), so this might not be the same perspective an OEM or vendor would have...

With the economy being what it is, representation by the dealer body was low. This was no surprise, but the sad part was it didn't set the stage for great debate on the dealer's behalf. A few of us tried to push things through twitter, but I think we just disturbed people. So when you have a bunch of vendors and manufacturers, many have a tendency to play things safe. There were a few people who pushed the envelope on stage (Larry Bruce from Reynolds & Reynolds and David Metter from MileOne), but these were few and far between...I'll write a bit about what they did a little further in.Due to my flight schedule I virtually missed the entire first day, and arrived just in time for the cocktail hour. I heard I only missed one good session though. The beginning of the second day started with Jim Farley of Ford who gave an incredible presentation of what Ford is doing in the digital space. I was very impressed!

I may not have these numbers perfectly correct, but from the graph Farley showed, this looks like Ford's media buy:  50% TV, 25% Digital, 15% Experimental, and 10% paper/magazines. He also said that

all of Ford's advertising is now derived from things learned in social media and they encourage all departments to participate and learn. He also stated that social media is such a strong influence on Ford that it actually plays a huge role in product and aftermarket development.

Their advertising strategy is simply to "get people talking about us, not us talking about us." He made me wish, more than ever, that we carried Ford.

After Farley Ralph Paglia, Jared Hamilton, Eric Miltsch, Christopher Barger, and Tom Chisholm's panel (pictured) was on social media. They each did a great job on explaining the fundamentals of how a business should approach these different communication pieces. I got to spend some time talking to Eric Miltsch and if you're not watching what he is doing at Auction Direct you should! You can view the slideshow from their presentation here - thanks Mary! Ralph has also posted about his experience on the panel on ADM.

As for some debate...

1. Larry Bruce from Reynolds & Reynolds brought up the age-old argument that a dealership should not move onto the next big thing until they've got the basics covered. I agree with that argument on some levels, but he got a little extreme with it, and obviously hasn't thought about things from the perspective of pushing the core through new dealership processes that I proposed last week. I at least applaud Larry for stirring up some debate!
   
2. There was a lot of talk about the buying funnel through Tier 1,2, & 3 advertising. I think everyone agreed that Tier 1 should be done by OEM's and Tier 3 should be done by dealers, but what about Tier 2? Tier 2 is regional dealership/OEM advertising done through ad agencies that is usually paid for on dealer invoices. The argument for Tier 2 was not very strong. However, I think some of the ad agencies who handle Tier 2 stuff, like Pivec/Pivnet, do a lot to push dealers and OEM's. Is there a value in that alone? There is definitely a lot more to debate on this subject.
   
3. David Metter did a great job of not only entertaining the audience in a panel about what Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 advertising should be doing, but he also got some good digs in on OEM digital advertising policies toward dealers. He made quite a few points that had me saying AMEN and wishing that VW, Honda, MINI, Scion, GM, and Cobalt were in the room. I can't quote David exactly, but here are two things he said in a nutshell:

Why do OEM's approve almost all traditional co-op, while asking us to do more digital, but give us such a hard time approving the digital?

I don't want my dealership website to look like my manufacturer's website.

AMEN brother!

I had some great conversations outside of the conference, and that is more what attending these things is all about.  Overall, I found this JD Power Automotive Internet Roundtable to be a graduation to Internet 201, but nothing that really pushed the envelope. Would I call it a waste of my boss' money? - No, I got a few nuggets and ideas to make some money with. Am I going to think twice about attending next year - yes.  I want more debate!  As Shaun Raines noted in the #JDPAIRT twitter stream, too many of the panelists and moderators had business ties.



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As more is written on the event, I'll try to keep posting links here:

Gary May's take on his week in VegasJay Friedman's account of JD Power << good listing of stats from the conference
JD Power's Own Review by Amit Aggarwal

 

[Eric Miltsch (blog)]

Alex,

Great summary...appreciate the mention. Great seeing you as well.

Farley's presentation was incredible; one theme that rang out to me on a consistent basis was the need to connect to our customers on a new emotional level - one that provides the customer the ability to customize an element of their experience.

(and this can apply to the consumer from the retail level all the way up to the OEM level)

Great to see everyone and finally meet so many of the people I've connected with online over the years.

Oh yea, Alex - my mess of a last name has 5 consonants in a row...Miltsch.

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Sorry about that Eric. I am going to have to add your last name to spell check - lol. You're a Miltsch again.

 

[LarryBruce]

Alex thanks for your comment and applause. I try to take off my vendor hat at every one of these events I am asked to speak at. You're right I had not read your post; New Dealership Processes until just now.

Very interesting to choose to break something forcing a new way of doing things, I absolutely agree with it. This concept is crystallized for me in Seth Godin’s book All Marketers Are Liars. It’s a great read.

You're also right that I go to the extreme with it. As dealers we think in extremes and I wanted the dealers in the audience to take at least that away from this panel. The more time I spend analyzing the TX. Direct Auto sales model the more I realize that many of the things we do in our dealerships are distractions and by focusing with intensity on the fundamentals we will get much farther than trying to be first in the next big thing (the silver bullet)

These fundamentals being:

1. A human optimized main random access website, focus on the user everything else will take care of itself – Google

2. Proper online merchandising of your inventory, the right pictures the right way (taken by you not some disinterested 3rd party)

3. Vehicle listing strategy, Paid sites & free sites

4. Pricing strategy, not the cheapest just competitive and priced to turn not for max gross (a hard one for a dealer to grasp)

5. PPC straegy for conquest customers

6. Finally a conversion focused strategy using microsites and conversion paths for all of the above

If a dealer can get these things dialed in then they can move on to the longtail and advanced elements of online marketing like social media if you don't have this foundation then the longtail isn’t sustainable.

Hope that makes sense and again thanks

 

[Kevin Frye]

Good review Alex, and well appreciated. We carry 15 brands, but not Ford, and I have to commend Ford for its efforts and success in the last 18 months as they entered the downturn in our industry and have done quite well compared to most other brands. And I agree completely with your 2 quotes regarding coop and digital advertising approval, and especially have your own website looking different than your OEM and your same brand competitors in town (Cobalt and GM sites!!!). Speaking of which, with the rollout of Google "Caffeine", duplicate content looks to be penalized, and template websites that cannot be customized for each individual market would appear to have some trouble in front of them...

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Larry - thank you for the response! I certainly appreciate and agree with your perspective. You're absolutely right for the majority of the dealers out there, and I must admit that we're guilty of not doing some of the things you referenced as well as I would like. On DealerRefresh, and at conferences especially, I like to play the wildcard to spark some debate. My posting about moving forward without building some foundation first is certainly a metaphor for a building that is going to topple over. However, that metaphor doesn't work the same way in dealership process today.

From my own personal experiences I have seen where moving forward is fixing the core. Somehow, installing the furniture before the concrete slab is laid is actually improving the quality of the concrete!

This is a recent realization for me, but the more I think about it the more I'm realizing it is the truth. There is one key point I didn't make in that article, and that is I monitor what our employees are doing across a wide breadth of mediums. Without doing that I could never connect these dots and help people recognize the areas they're doing well in for the benefit of the areas they're struggling in.

Kevin - I'm glad you pointed out Google Caffeine. Jeff or I need to write about that one. I've been doing a lot of comparisons on Why Melbourne is a Hub for Adult Math Education in Australia | Compare Caffeine and am finding some holes in our current strategy if this truly is the future of organic Google search results.

 

[Larry Bruce]

Kevin / Alex @scottmonty (Scott Monty) Global Digital Communications Manager with Ford did an outstanding presentation on Ford's digital initiatives you can get his presentation @ slideshare.net/scottmonty it worth looking at

 

[JohnScott]

I saw an interview over the weekend from Blogworld expo, which was apparently happening at the same time, and same city as JD Power round table.

I saw a bunch of videos, but one had a couple of FORD guys talking about the results they're getting from a campaign where they gave some FIESTAS to I think a 100? or so people so they could demo it and blog about it with no restrictions. Apparently they've had a huge response.

Did you hear any mention of that at JD?

Here are some results from oct 2nd,
- 4.3 million YouTube (YouTube) views thus far
- 500,000+ Flickr (Flickr) views
- 3 million+ Twitter impression
- 50,000 interested potential customers, 97% of which don’t own a Ford currently.

Loading…

fiestamovement.com

 

[Eric Miltsch (blog)]

John,

That was a big portion of Farley's presentation - The Fiesta campaign was a massive undertaking.

I followed several of the participants on twitter...brilliant campaign as it created a massive folloing of people who wanted to become drivers and those who simply want to see the drivers' exploits.

I remember someone asking at JD Power if these participants' experiences were genuine? I can't see how they couldn't have been more genuine.

Drivers we tasked with specific activities on top of their daily usage...the reactions I saw seemed to nothing but genuine.

Simple premise: Let the consumer customize their experience.

 

[Richard (blog)]

The Ford Fiesta Movement appears to be a brilliant campaign. What a great way to kick off the new 2011 Fiesta.