AI Video Marketing: Is this the future for dealership sales and service?

[willandre]

No offense to anyone working hard to advance these initiatives, but people buy from people, and if your people can't shoot a 15 second video and fling it off to a customer in under 5 minutes, perhaps you need some different people.

For better or worse, buying a car is an emotional experience. That's the reality for customers who are committing years of their life to a brand and it's why the most successful salespeople are drawn to the business.

Until AI can replicate that enthusiasm and emotion in a true digital twin capacity for salespeople, it will fail to deliver the authenticity required to connect with people and bring them closer to the sale.

Will we get there? Odd are we'll get pretty close, but we're not close yet, and video starring a distant, steely-eyed AI avatar runs the risk of pushing people farther away in the meantime.

 

[Esteban]

No offense to anyone working hard to advance these initiatives, but people buy from people, and if your people can't shoot a 15 second video and fling it off to a customer in under 5 minutes, perhaps you need some different people.

For better or worse, buying a car is an emotional experience. That's the reality for customers who are committing years of their life to a brand and it's why the most successful salespeople are drawn to the business.

Until AI can replicate that enthusiasm and emotion in a true digital twin capacity for salespeople, it will fail to deliver the authenticity required to connect with people and bring them closer to the sale.

Will we get there? Odd are we'll get pretty close, but we're not close yet, and video starring a distant, steely-eyed AI avatar runs the risk of pushing people farther away in the meantime.

If you look at the newest ai models, is getting very difficult to tell them apart from real. You have to actually pay attention and look for clues. Give the technology a few more months, and you wont be able to set them apart. That is the first thing.

The second thing, it does not replace people. It is no different from showing clients a picture before they come talk to you and see the car. Get that connection you refer to. Still a well created ai persona will probably be very likely to trigger that connection before they come talk to you, a beautiful blond showing me the newest Toyota trucks? sign me up!

 

[willandre]

If you look at the newest ai models, is getting very difficult to tell them apart from real. You have to actually pay attention and look for clues. Give the technology a few more months, and you wont be able to set them apart. That is the first thing.

The second thing, it does not replace people. It is no different from showing clients a picture before they come talk to you and see the car. Get that connection you refer to. Still a well created ai persona will probably be very likely to trigger that connection before they come talk to you, a beautiful blond showing me the newest Toyota trucks? sign me up!

Imagine your disappointment when you arrive at the dealership and that "beautiful blond" is Harold with toupee.

 

[Esteban]

Imagine your disappointment when you arrive at the dealership and that "beautiful blond" is Harold with toupee.

well he arrived right?

 

[Esteban]

Imagine your disappointment when you arrive at the dealership and that "beautiful blond" is Harold with toupee.

Also you are making the wrong assumption that an interested car buyer expects to see the person on the video. Again AI is just a tool, like taking good pictures of a car, not a replacement for the people actually selling the cars.

 

[TJThompson]

LIke I said before its 'interesting' but not ready for prime time. I still believe creating these kind of videos (assuming financial sense), is good for service. Too many opcodes etc. to shoot them one at a time with a real person and many people have trouble seeing value in a brake service for example. A short video explaining the benefits to me make sense.

For example we send out service videos now to our customers and each opcode for them to approve online has a little "?" icon beside the name. They click that and we use AI to explain the benefits of that service in 3 paragraphs (and in french or english). I could see substituting that with a brief video instead.