Cars.com Superbowl commercials - What did you think?

[Jeff Kershner]

Here are a few of the cars.com commercials aired during the superbowl. Advertisers paid around 2.6 million for 30 seconds of air time during the Super Bowl XLI.

I thought they were average at best. What did you all think?

 

[McCoy Wood]

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.

 

[Lightnup (blog)]

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.

 

[Jake]

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.

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

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!

 

[Nasir]

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 (blog)]

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.

 

[Brian T in Etown]

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.

 

[Brian T in Etown]

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.

 

[Gerald]

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.