Recently we heard a report that compared car sales from Feb of last year to Feb of this year, sales are down 50%. FIFTY Percent.  Car dealers are now thinking a little differently about what to do to counter act this. They are looking for things that will drive traffic. for the Auto Dealers it’s no longer only about reach and frequency, it’s going to be about how you can drive traffic to them. Ideas for events, games, anything that will drive traffic.

I noticed he didn’t mention good creative.

Andrew passed along a comment that everything is down right now - except foreclosures. We have restaurants that have shut down permanently in this area because people have to hold what disposable income they have to pay the bills and buy groceries - which is another thing getting rather expensive.

Car dealers can think all they want on how to counter-act a sales slump - and they will not ever come up with the magic bullet. Why? People are not buying. Period. You will not - can not - convince them to buy when they don’t have the income to buy. End of story.

Car dealers - the ones continuing to sell cars - are continuing to do what they should do - reach and frequency. Remember - advertising DOES NOT sell product. It introduces and maintains awareness for a product or service. The consumer’s desire for that product or service drives the purchasing.

So these idiots can bring in as much of a circus as they want but it’s not going to sell more cars. Keeping awareness in the marketplace high FOR your cars, though, will slake the need for information when the desire to purchase comes to fruition.

One of the dealerships (locally) headed by the largest single-point Ford dealer in the nation knows this. They’ve slashed through the employees, firing en masse; cut benefits, cut, cut, and cut some more … but their agency has maintained a now ubiquitous presence in the market for the last seven years. You can not turn on the radio or watch television without hearing or seeing a commercial for one of their dealerships. Their advertising is high-creative, very labor intensive, flashy and loud. Everyone hates it or loves it. And it works.

And that’s not going to change. Because they understand that all the circuses in town will NOT make people buy, but reach-and-frequency awareness will keep their name top-of-mind when the consumer or businessperson is in the market to buy.

Thanks for the insight Andrew…

Justin

photo credit: tanjila