Successful, savvy auto dealers understand that a good automotive advertising agency is worth its weight in gold. Effective advertising and marketing campaigns make the difference as local automotive dealers compete to dominate their market(s).
Each year automotive advertising budgets rise significantly, as local dealers vie to outsell their competition. Recent data compiled by the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) indicates that dealer ad budgets rose at a dramatic rate, up more than 12% from 2011 to about $7.2 billion.Read More
When we last left it, the World Wide Web was happening, but automotive advertising really didn’t jump on the bandwidth wagon until the first years of the twenty first century. It was all brand new. There were fits and starts everywhere, the big experiment had begun in earnest. Few knew what they were doing, and many of the misapplications, bad habits and false expectations spawned in the early years, remain yet, even today, all of which will be discussed in part three.
Manufacturers, media, ad agencies and retailers became their own worst enemy; and it is here where the narrative gets tricky; because it can easily turn into the which came first, the chicken or the egg kind of argument.Read More
The first job I ever had in the automotive business was during the summer of 1972 clerking at the Texaco purchasing department in Long Island City, New York. I was a sophomore in college, working for my father Gerard Baumann, who was a tough boss. My father was a buyer of fleet vehicles, and my job was to do what I was told.
It was there where I began to learn how complex the automotive industry is, and since then, it hasn’t gotten any simpler. At the time I had a general idea of what was going on, but the complexities of fleet sales in comparison to retail sales seemed a bit daunting. Now here I am some years later, and the complexities of retail sales in comparison to fleet sales have become nearly as complex.Read More
Comic spokes-caveman for Hatfield Kia, [tooltip title=”” content=”Sonic Automotive Dealer (SAH NYSE) is a Fortune 500 company and is one of the largest automotive retailers in the United States. Sonic Automotive operates over 100 dealerships in 15 states and 26 major metropolitan areas. Sonic sells over 30 different makes with an emphasis on luxury and imported brands.” type=”classic”]a unit of the Sonic Automotive Group[/tooltip], Kia Kong made an unplanned stop at Easton Town Center on Friday.
The local headline could’ve read: Kia Kong Sighted in Columbus, Ohio! The tabloids might’ve responded with: Shy But Jealous Bigfoot Announces Own Tour!Read More