Dealer radio ads are perhaps the worst, as they compete to scream the loudest, making the late Sam Kinison seem sedate. (For those too young to remember, Sam Kinison was a comic, whose heyday lasted from his first appearance on David Letterman’s show in 1985, until Sam’s passing in April, 1992. He was known for giving full vent to his frustration at various ex-wives and people who he considered foolish. His voice seemingly lives on as the frontman is various metal thrash bands today.)

The television commercials now are all seemingly trying to outdo Cal Worthington’s animal tricks ads of the late Sixties (a Southern California Dodge dealer, who also acquired various other makes over the years) or Dick Balch’s “little devil” ads of the Seventies. (Mr. Balch, a Chevrolet dealer, would dress in a devil’s suit, come onto his lot and declare, “It’s that little devil me” and then, smash a windshield with a hammer. It got him on the old “Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I met Dick Balch in 1994 and, at 62, he was still as fiesty as ever.)

The problem is how the entire auto industry, but most especially the American one operates. It’s all about volume, and has been ever since 1955, when the Big Three plus two (Studebaker-Packard and American Motors) sold 6 million cars (give or take). The key to purported success is trying to match and, of course, exceed that.

Then too, there is the fact that car sales associates are usually paid by commission. Put it all together and you get more rank desperation than a singles bar at closing time.

It would be great to have the model Porsche has, or maybe even Lotus. But then, how many $40,000 two-seaters can you sell, as does Lotus? Additionally, from what I gather, Lotus has made fair money doing research for others.

And even Porsche had to add sport-utes to the mix, and as soon as 2009, a sedan. But still, neither Lotus or Porsche have screaming banshee dealer ads saying, “We have to have slash prices this weekend, to make room for the 2008s!”

That being said, I’ll be damned if I know the name of the dealership featured in the ads, or what kind of cars that the dealership sells. I haven’t a clue why I would buy a car there (assuming it was conveniently located for me), given that I don’t know its name, what it sells or what benefits that it may provide me, aside from its ability to hire ad agencies with a sense of humor.

Which may be the problem. The screamer ads with the sleazy pitchman may be tedious, insulting to one’s intelligence, and more cheesy than an overturned truckload of Velveeta…but the ads will generally make it clear where the dealership is located, what kinds of cars it sells, and that it is capable of financing anyone (at an undisclosed absurdly high interest rate, of course.) All probably useful information for someone who is actually in the market for a car purchase.

In my mind, the latter ad is probably going to be more effective most of the time, particularly for a dealership that specializes in churning-and-burning used cars and soaking naive buyers in the F&I department. Probably not a terrific method for peddling shiny new Porsches, but for pushing out well used Pontiacs that were ridden hard and put away wet, the low-rent guy-in-a-leisure-suit ad just might be a winning strategy.

The only problem is that to get consistent humor takes effort, for which someone must be paid. If you can quantify the success of your funny commercials, then you should be able to start going around selling the idea to dealers in every market. We will all be glad when you are successful and rich.

Go for it.

I vote for the funny guys every time.

Guess which ad pulled in more customers?

The ad where we didn’t scream.

It’s easy to say that playing to the cheap seats is a winning strategy. What’s important to note, however, is if you don’t try to rise above the noise, you’ll never know that there is a better way, and that better way is treating your customers as if they have enough sense to know when they are being treated with respect.

http://www.trunkmonkeyad.com/

As they say in the retail car business — If you ain’t Yellin’, you ain’t Sellin’

Sorry, but I am going to have to disagree with you on this point. My wife and I checked out the local Carmax when we were thinking of selling our 2005 Infiniti FX35. I had already done my homework and knew what the local Autotrader market was, as well as KBB and Edmunds values. Carmax came back with an offer that was right where it should have been: around $1200 below private party but $1500 above trade-in. In the end we did not sell the FX35, but the experience was helpful.

I’ve sold a number of vehicle via private party and will do so in the future. However, I would not hesitate to recommend Carmax to a friend.

You know folks, if Lynn Hickey doesn’t sell a 1000 vehicles this month he’s going to slit his throat right here on TV. Come on down today, Monday, and we can get you into this beautiful Town and Country for $129 per month! That’s right, zero down and your credit problems are no problem.

Please don’t disparage my state. We’re not ALL touchy-feely, just as I know not all Texans are like G.W. Oh, and Oprah is from Chicago…

Here’s my favorite dealer ad and it’s definitely not touchy feely: Chick Lambert

I wanted to crack a few jokes about the situation but the mood/atmosphere really didn’t seem right. Plus, I didn’t want the parts guy to pump up the price anymore.

I was going to say “do you guys still work on cars here?”. “Hey, is that space for rent back there?”. “What’s that empty area back there used for?”.

I’m tempted to go back for a second look. Is there a chance they no longer have a service department there?

I don’t know how some dealers keep the lights on. Does Ford underwrite them? Do they get money from Ford each month to pay bills/salary?

It must be near impossible to sell 2.5 cars these days. The price sucks, the fuel mileage sucks, the performance sucks, and they have a 37 year in the making reputation for not being reliable vehicles. Ask anyone that owned one.

There might be a way to fix all that with the current models that are out. Do a mid year model change immediately.

Make different models of each vehicle so each model excels at SOMETHING. THIS model gets great fuel mileage. THIS model gets great performance. THIS model is extremely low priced. Because right now, every model is just plain average, and average is not exciting nor compelling.

Chevy Volt and Camaro could be good sellers, but they really, really need to come out this fall. There is an idled and shuttered GM plant in OKC that doesn’t build anything right now but the union employees show up everyday and sit in the cafeteria to collect a paycheck. They could be making Camaro’s or Volts in there instead!

Ah, it’s been awhile since I heard those words. Brad you must be from New York or New Jersey for I believe you are referring to none other than Crazy Eddie and his discount ads for electronics. They were quite well known in the region. Some of the local businesses could make some unique and entertaining commercials. I still remember the wimpy little guy surrounded by buxom beauties in the ads for Krass Bros. Mens Store in Philadelphia (anyone know if that place is still around?).

I have heard some radio spots for dealers that don’t scream. The worst though always seemed to be Mitsubishi. I had to change the station every time one came on.

I have to agree. If it wasn’t working, they’d do something else.

A local furniture store has a sale that absolutely ends this weekend. Of course, they have a sale every weekend. As silly as it sounds, it must work for them.

I find that the mute button is the best response to dealer ads.

You are all smarter than the target of dealer advertising!

I believe dealer advertising is targeting people who actually respond to it. Seems to me that people with an IQ over 116 are somewhat immune to advertising gimmicks, and the only value the advertiser will get is name recognition.

Car dealers are commodity players, and they would like our business, but they need the average idiot to walk in expecting a deal that is really not a deal at all. The average idiot actually responds to the shouting, and when he shows up, he actually responds to their other sleazy tactics.

Sad but true.

The fact that most of us here can put together a reasonably logical post made up of sentences, paragraphs, and understandable points (however wrong they may be) puts most of us well above the 116 mark. (IIRC, scoring at or above the 87th percentile on most national tests, like the SAT, corresponds to an above 116 IQ).

So, the reason dealer ad’s seem stupid is not because the dealer is an idiot, it’s because you aren’t :)

It’s tough to get a better response by being clever. It costs money to hire talent to get that way (or you can get lucky), but the “DEAL, DEAL, DEAL” method has a pretty well known ROI. At least it must, or I can’t believe it would still be going on. Dealers have gotten fairly sophisticated in tracking effectiveness on stuff like this. Some even track the cycles of the moon.

I believe dealer ads are the way they are because they actually work. :(

I can still remember last fall, seeing the GM commercials with people jumping out of high-rises and on to cars on moving car carriers. It was during the national news, following news stories about the anniversary of 9-11 and stories about people leaping from the twin towers. It was just weird and I can’t imagine what the ad departments were thinking.

The second part of that statement I have to strongly disgaree with. Carmax lowballs it’s trade-in’s for the same reason that all other dealers do so. They do it because consumers simply don’t know any better. This is the same reason why they currently charge a $149 documentation fee in Georgia when it only costs $18 in Georgia to transact a title and $5 to transfer a current tag.

Carmax has to handle a very high level of overhead just like all the other new car dealers. In fact, their overhead is probably far higher than most folks realize which is why they use Kelly’s Blue Book extensively as a frame of reference for their prices.

I do like many aspects of Carmax’s model; especially the back-end organizational and statistical tools they use to handle their inventory and employee training. They also do have a lot of good people throughout the company. However the overwhelming majority of consumers would be far better off selling their vehicles for a RETAIL market than a (lower than) wholesale price.

That comment goes directly to one of my complaints for nearly twenty years about newspapers and dealers. The dealers have been such a huge source of ad dollars to the newspapers that it usually means that the papers never actually report on the scam artist dealerships (at least not until there’s some prosecuting going on). It’s a conflict of interest — ad dollars versus useful info for their readers. The same thing for local TV news — their consumer reporters aren’t going to go after the dealers either.

I “grew up” in Upstate NY and between the car dealership ads and the Lawyer “Did you fall off a ladder at work? It’s not your fault! It’s your employers fault! We will sue for every penny you deserve….” ads, I had to move away.

I like the parody ad “What? Are they out of season?”…Excellent! Thanks!

Cars have become so good and reliable that dealerships can hardly add value. What does a modern car need in terms of service in it’s 100K service life? A couple of oil changes and a set of tires…Maybe brakes and warranty work (try to find a dealer that does not state “No problem found, customer on drugs” on the warranty service work order).

The only value a dealership adds is a test drive, warranty work, and maybe to look at different color combinations…The Internet provides the rest.

More and more people are finding value in websites like CarsDirect, Fitzmall, TTAC (Have you clicked a TTAC ad lately?), Edmunds, Intellichoice, AutoTrader, eBay, etc. I tell people to buy off the Internet and sell their trade-in to Carmax. There is no better value.

How can dealerships compete with this?