Automotive Advertising Ideas

TV Stations Turn To Instant Events For Help With Car Dealer Advertising

2012-01-10T18:33:00.011-06:00

Instant Events was featured in the December Issue of AUTO REVENUE INSIGHTS, a newsletter that advises local stations on automotive TV advertising and car dealerships. The newsletter is produced by Jim Doyle, a long time sales and revenue guru in the television industry. In the article, they encourage TV stations to let Instant Events produce ads for their local car dealers instead of producing them in house for free.

So why would a renowned TV revenue consultant advise stations to just give up valuable sales dollars?

There's only one reason.... Different Gets Noticed.

Different Gets Noticed.

If your ad gets produced, in house, by the same guy who's doing every other ad on the evening news, your ads are going to blend in on the evening news.

Jim Doyle knows that if there are going to be 15 different dealers advertising on NEWSCHANEL 5 at 6, the station better find a way to make your ads stand out, get noticed and create action,

Or you, and your advertising dollars, won't be coming back next month.

That's where Instant Events comes in.

"Loud, action-packed, some would even say obnoxious, "

They say about Instant Events' particular brand of hard sell car dealer TV spots.

"But so what? They Work!"

That's what my grandmother would call a backhanded complement, but we'll take it.

TV stations are then advised to have Instant Events produce the newspaper and radio ads for their local dealers media mix.

That's because the simple fact is in automotive advertising 2+2 doesn't always equal 4. The sum can be greater than its parts.

If your potential customers see a "loud, action-packed" TV spot on the evening news,

Then they open the mail and a GINORMOUS SALES FLYER falls in their lap talking about the same sale,

Then, when they go to their laptop to check it out, your websites and facebook pages have the same big, bold headlines and graphics as the TV spot and Direct Mail piece,

Then, when they actually get to your dealership, the same images is all over your walls and sales lot...

That's when 2+2=5.

Frequency sells. It not only breaks through the clutter to get noticed, but tears down buying resistance to create action.

If you say the same thing often enough,
through enough different sources,
in enough different ways,
it becomes what people believe - validated by each repetition -
until the tipping point is reached and the customer jumps up and takes action.

And whether it's an internet click, a phone call from the couch or walking on the lot with the newspaper ad under their arms, they're all raising their hands to say they might be a buyer.

Terry Lancaster is the co-founder and a managing partner of Instant Events which provides car dealers with Newspaper, Radio, TV, Direct Mail and Interactive advertising plus pre-packaged sales events with no long-term contracts and no media or sales commissions.

Pandora Ads Compete For Local Radio Dollars

2011-12-01T15:58:00.006-06:00

Pandora is now touting itself to local advertisers as one of the strongest radio stations in every local market.

“We’ve now moved into a position of one of the largest radio stations in each of our markets effectively and typically the largest among the (18 to 35-year-old) demographic,” says Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy in a conference call according to Forbes.

“We have the platform to go to local advertisers and say, ‘Hey this is a place you should be and need to be.’”

Pandora boasts a better than 4% of US Listeners, but Pandora won't be competing with stand alone local radio stations. Radio comes in clusters now and terrestrial radio giants Cumulus and Clear Channel local clusters command 30, 40 sometimes 50 percent shares in their hometowns.

The competition is striking back, too. Clear Channel is going after Pandora's online and mobile listeners with their IHeartRadio platform, though that's not yet available to advertisers.

Pandora also has banner ads and video pre-roll to sell so they're hiring local sales forces to go out, find where the bones are buried and push Pandora's advantages in demographic and geographic targetability - down to the zip code.

And, as opposed to local radio where sometimes "Now, Here's another 10 in a Row" refers to the commercials, Pandora ads come in clusters of just 1 and only about once every 20 minutes.

We'll know it's serious when there's a Pandora disc jockey spending 72 hours camped out and broadcasting from some car dealer's billboard.

Terry Lancaster is the co-founder of Instant Events which provides automotive, powersports and RV dealers with Newspaper, Radio, TV, Direct Mail and Internet Advertising.

The 1% Rule of Automotive Advertising

2011-04-30T22:21:00.000-05:00

There’s an old saying in the advertising business: “Half the money you spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is figuring out which half.”

That’s depressing enough, but the truth is that on any given weekend less than 1% of the people in your city are in the market for a new or used car. That means 99% of the population has almost no interest in listening to your radio spot or watching your latest TV ad. 99% of the population will never notice your print ad because they have no reason to go looking through all the car ads in the classified section.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the 1% who are in the market will pay close attention to everything you say, will actually seek out your ads with their checkbooks in hand trying to figure out exactly how much car they can afford.

These are the people you should target with your advertising.

Advertising to build a brand name and advertising to create immediate retail sales are vastly different undertakings. For instance, some marketing people will tell you that you shouldn’t have a big sale going all the time. “Look at Wal-Mart,” they say. “They’re the number one retailer in the world because of every day low prices. They’re not having some big sale every time you turn around” Well that’s true. EVERY DAY low prices works for Wal-Mart because people buy what Wal-Mart sells EVERY DAY. Their customers don’t have time to look around and research the best deal every time they buy a new tube of toothpaste or pack of underwear. And they’re probably not going to get excited and drive to the store because they think they can save $5 on a pair of jeans.

But people, at best, buy a new car every two or three years. The one person out of a hundred who is seriously looking to buy a car right now, doesn’t want LOW prices EVERY day, he or she wants the BEST price, TODAY! And they will get excited if they think you can cut their monthly payment by a hundred bucks.

That’s why sales events are so powerful for marketing car dealerships. Aggressively advertising a weekend sales event is all about attracting RIGHT NOW buyers.

If your target market is basically everybody, you can afford to do nice, polite image advertising with kids and puppy dogs. If you’re only advertising to 1% of the population, you’ve got to grab their attention and give them credible reasons to shop your store TODAY before they shop somewhere else.

If 99% of your friends and coworkers complain that your advertising is loud, obnoxious and over the top ...WHO CARES? What’s important is that the ad is exciting enough, dramatic enough and aggressive enough to get the attention of that one person out of a hundred who needs to see it and motivate them to take action RIGHT NOW.

###

Terry Lancaster is the co-founder of Instant Events Automotive Advertsing which produces quick and easy, hassle-free automotive sales events plus attention-grabbing, market-dominating, traffic-generating print, radio and TV advertising with no long term contracts, no commitments and no agency commission.

Contact Info:

1-800-352-3305
lancaster@instantevents.com

2011-03-21T00:31:00.015-05:00

3 Seconds to Fame and Fortune

2010-05-12T23:11:00.000-05:00

I've got a book somewhere in a box in the attic or garage written by a famous car dealer who got into the ad agency business, wrote several books, and was kind of a big deal back when.

And to tell the truth, I don't remember the guy's name, or the name of the book or the name of his agency, but I do remember one of his ALL-CAPITAL-LETTERS, highlighted-and-underlined, never-forget-this rules of automotive advertising.

And I only remember it for one reason: When I read it, I thought it was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard. Still do.

The guy got rich and famous telling dealers to never, ever, under any circumstances, let any of the viewers/listeners of your ads know you're trying to sell them a car until at least 7 seconds into the ad. I knew he was wrong then, and today, 20 years later, I've got the scientific evidence to back it up.

A new ad skipping study of 100,000 viewers from Tivo, presented to the Advertising Research Foundation, finds that viewers who become emotionally engaged in a TV spot within the first few seconds were dramatically less likely to fast forward through the ad than those who were not engaged.

No new information here, just scientific proof of the obvious fact that people pay attention to stuff that they're interested in, and more importantly, tune out the vast majority of stuff that they're not.

Whether it's radio or TV or any other form of advertising you've only got seconds to grab the consumer's attention, before they mentally tune you out or physically click away from your message.

I can't tell you the number of dealer spot I hear that start with the weather report: "Well, Spring is in the air, flowers are blooming, and here at Jone's Brothers Motors, we're..." Blah, Blah, Blah.

If you were in the market for a new Merdedes, what would "emotionally engage" faster, another "spring is in the air" spot or "Over 50 Mercedes Benz C300’s in stock from just $399 a month at Ed Hicks Mercedes Benz"?

Instead of wasting the three most important seconds of your relationship with a potential customer with the weather report, zoom in on the 1% of the population in the market for a car, and right off the bat, grab them by the ears and tell them you can make them a great deal on the car they want. TODAY.

--Terry Lancaster is the co-founder of instant-events.com, an automotive advertising services firm with dealer clients in every English speaking nation on the planet

2010-04-02T16:38:00.000-05:00

Instant Events : Automotive Advertising & Sales Events

March Mark Down Madness

2010-02-24T15:07:00.001-06:00

Terry Lancaster is the co-founder and a managing partner of instant-events.com: Automotive Advertising which provides car dealers with Radio, TV and Print Advertising plus pre-packaged sales events with no long-term contracts and no media or sales commissions.

Radio Second Only to TV in Reach

2009-11-03T20:37:00.004-06:00

This week brought more good news for radio from Nielsen, which analyzed behavioral data collected by the Council for Research Excellence. In Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, and Seattle in the 2008, broadcast radio reached 77% of American adults every day, making it second only to television, which garnered 95% daily reach according to MediaPost

Terry Lancaster is the co-founder and a managing partner of instant-events.com: Automotive Advertising which provides car dealers with Radio, TV and Print Advertising plus pre-packaged sales events with no long-term contracts and no media or sales commissions.

Auto Sales to Rise in 2010

2009-10-23T12:32:00.001-05:00

PROJECTED 15% INCREASE MARKS FIRST YEAR OVER YEAR GROWTH SINCE 2005

DETROIT, Oct 21 (Reuters) - U.S. auto sales are projected to rise nearly one-fifth to 11.8 million units in 2010, influential industry tracking firm CSM Worldwide said on Wednesday, citing signs that the worst of the economic downturn had passed.

CSM, raising its forecast by 600,000 units, said consumer confidence will improve enough to drive the industry's recovery by the first quarter of next year, when employment and other economic indicators are expected to bottom out.

Sales of 11.8 million units would represent the first year-on-year increase in U.S. light vehicle sales since 2005.

Terry Lancaster is the co-founder and a managing partner of instant-events.com: Automotive Advertising which provides car dealers with Radio, TV and Print Advertising plus pre-packaged sales events with no long-term contracts and no media or sales commissions.

Price Slasher Sales Event

2009-10-22T15:03:00.001-05:00

instant-events.com: Automotive Advertising provides car dealers with Radio, TV and Print Advertising plus pre-packaged sales events with no long-term contracts and no media or sales commissions.

Automotive Advertising Improves

2009-10-19T02:05:00.001-05:00

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- The Los Angeles Times pulled its “Chevy Showroom” Sunday insert backed by General Motors Corp. last year as car sales plummeted. GM has since emerged from bankruptcy protection and the newspaper section is back.

The Times’ publisher, Tribune Co., along with New York Times Co. and Hearst Corp., say marketing spending rebounded from carmakers such as GM and Daimler AG in the third quarter. That may have helped stanch advertising sales declines after record drops in the first half of 2009.

“We definitely saw a relative uptick in the performance of the automotive category in the last couple of months,” Denise Warren, chief advertising officer at the New York Times, said in an interview this month. “It’s been a little ray of sunshine.”

Read More at Bloomberg.com

Terry Lancaster is the co-founder and a managing partner of instant-events.com: Automotive Advertising which provides car dealers with Radio, TV and Print Advertising plus pre-packaged sales events with no long-term contracts and no media or sales commissions.

Halloween Sales Event & Advertsing

2009-09-29T17:18:00.000-05:00

Automotive Advertising: The Good News is it Could Be Worse

2009-06-23T02:23:00.005-05:00

There's a great article in today's New York Times

It's one of the few articles I've seen discussing the advertising slowdown from the local/dealer perspective instead of from the manufacturer point of view:

Ads from automakers — running nationally and locally — fell 19 percent in the first quarter of 2009, compared with a year earlier, according to research firm TNS Media Intelligence.

Ads from dealer associations fell 62 percent, while ads from the individual local dealers declined almost 40 percent.

Local traditional media — television, radio and newspapers — are more reliant on automotive advertising than any other medium. In 2008, TV stations got 23 percent of their total advertising from auto, followed by local newspapers at 17 percent and radio stations at 14 percent, according to a Sanford C. Bernstein & Company report released this month.

Terry Lancaster is the co-founder and a managing partner of instant-events.com: Automotive Advertising which provides car dealers with Radio, TV and Print Advertising plus pre-packaged sales events with no long-term contracts and no media or sales commissions.

Killer Sales Events

2009-06-04T19:44:00.004-05:00

This month's Dealer Marketing Magazine has an interesting article on automotive sales events featuring an interview with internationally renowned marketing expert.... ME:

DEALER MARKETING MAGAZINE: How to Have Killer Sales Events

Terry Lancaster is the co-founder and a managing partner of instant-events.com: Automotive Advertising which provides car dealers with Radio, TV and Print Advertising plus pre-packaged sales events with no long-term contracts and no media or sales commissions.

Franchised Inventory Liquidation Ads

2009-05-29T12:22:00.000-05:00

If It Doesn't Look Like There's a Big Sale Going On.... There's NOT

2009-05-08T17:30:00.002-05:00

Terry Lancaster is the co-founder of instant-events.com: Automotive Advertising which provides car dealers with Radio, TV and Print Advertising plus pre-packaged sales events with no long-term contracts and no media or sales commissions.

300 Car Dealerships Closed So Far This Year

2009-04-09T18:34:00.005-05:00

Almost 300 car dealerships closed their doors in the first quarter of 2009 according to a report in tomorrow's
WALL STREET JOURNAL and the National Automobile Dealer's Association.

As of March 31s, there were 19,738 new car dealers in the US, down from 20,009 at the end o 2008 and down almost 1,000 dealers from the start of last year. The NADA predict that 1,200 dealers will cease business this year.

Terry Lancaster is the co-founder and a managing partner of instant-events.com: Automotive Advertising which provides car dealers with Radio, TV and Print Advertising plus pre-packaged sales events with no long-term contracts and no media or sales commissions.

Car Dealers React to GMAC Easing Finance Requirements

2009-04-01T12:02:00.003-05:00

General Motors' has launched a customer protection package in an effort to encourage more vehicle purchases and GMAC announced it will expand the credit spectrum for U.S. buyers, adding approvals for qualified customers with FICOs under 620.

Perhaps more importantly to dealer, GMAC temporarily ease wholesale finance charges for dealers and earmark $5 billion for consumer auto loans over the next 60 days.

instant-events.com provides car dealers with Radio, TV and Print Advertising plus pre-packaged sales events with no long-term contracts and no media or sales commissions.

Buyers Switching to Used Cars

2009-03-19T18:48:00.000-05:00

At a time when new car dealers are desperate for every sale, a remarkable number of shoppers are drifting out of the new car market and purchasing a used car instead. Edmunds.com has determined that approximately 511,000 used cars sold in the past three months would have been new car sales in a more normal economy.

"It is safe to assume that many shoppers who normally would be tempted by 'new car smell' and the latest automotive technology made a more cost-conscious decision because of economic pressures," surmised Edmunds.com Senior Analyst David Tompkins, PhD, whose team studied historical ratios of online research and actual sales of new cars versus used cars.

"Right now, dealers need to maximize their short-term profitability more than ever," observed Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl. "So it is really no surprise to learn that salespeople are directing some car buyers toward used cars, which have historically delivered a much higher profit margin to the dealer."

Edmunds.com's research shows that recent model year used vehicles have been sold at a faster rate by franchise dealerships lately; in the past, vehicles that were one model year old made up about 11 percent of all dealership sales, but lately they have jumped to 16 percent.

Consumers Turn to Used Cars Instead of New

2009-03-01T14:46:00.002-06:00

It's no secret that new car sales at US dealers have been in a steep decline for several months as people worry about their financial future. But many consumers still need a new, if not "brand new" car, and interest is peaking on used cars, as people look to replace their current vehicles. And the category of certified pre-owned vehicles are doing unexpectedly and exceptionally well.

Is the Car Business Ready to Bounce Back?

2009-02-24T15:42:00.007-06:00

The days of selling 16 million+ new cars a year are long past, according to conventional wisdom. And the new economy means dealers better be ready to survive in a 10-11 million sales a year new car market.

But not so fast says industry researcher COMPETE. They use a proprietary measure of automotive demand that tracks consumer inquiries on third party automotive sites. And, yes, while car sales may have fallen off a cliff since last summer, actual demand has remained remarkably steady and even shown signs of a turnaround.

The difference is in the automotive industry's ability to convert that demand into actual sales. The ratio of demand to actual sales is at its lowest point in years. The lack of available financing and the media's incessant negativity have limited dealers' abilities to sell cars to those who want them and kept buyers who might be able to qualify for financing at home sitting on their wallets. But, and this is key, they're still looking for cars, thinking about cars, and planning on buying cars when, and if, the economy starts to straighten out. That implies a ready market of pent up demand, just waiting to be tapped.

COMPETE's measure of demand is up dramatically from the depths of last November and last month was only down 5% from January 2008. 2.5 Million shoppers were in the market in January (yep.... about ONE PERCENT of the population) showing one of the smallest annual declines since 2005.

So if demand is strengthening, or more precisely, weakening less, and dealers can find a way to put the people who want a new car in a new car, COMPETE sees matching last years 13 million new cars as a possibility.

But since God loves an optimist, I'm going step even further out on that limb: IF, and it's admittedly a big if, but IF the money starts to flow again, and demand conversion rates get back to historical levels of around 50%, I think demand itself will pick up even more... The more people think they CAN buy a car, the more they WANT a car.

Car sales could snap back as rapidly as they dropped off last summer. The dealers who thrive will be the ones who are ready, willing and able to convert demand into sales when the dam breaks.

And like they told you your first day selling on the car lot: you ain't gonna get the business unless you ask for the business.

Keep on advertising and keep on asking.

--Terry Lancaster is the co-founder of instant-events.com, an automotive advertising services firm with dealer clients in every English speaking nation on the planet

Push Pull Or Drag Sales Event TV Spot

2009-01-15T13:48:00.001-06:00

Call Instant-Events.com at 1-800-352-3305 for attention grabbing, traffic generating, market dominating print, radio and TV ads for car dealers, powersports dealers and other business around the world with no long term contract, no commissions and no percentages out of your profit. Call Today and start your big sale tomorrow!

The World's Cheapest Strategy for Making Your Customers More Receptive, Your Advertising More Effective and Your Salespeople More Productive

2008-12-28T00:09:00.000-06:00

Picture this ugly scenario: You’ve invested thousands upon thousands of dollars into promoting your ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME, NO-HOLDS-BARRED, THIS-WEEKEND-ONLY, ALL-OUT, BLOW-OUT, SUPER SALE. You’ve cut through the clutter, motivated Mr. and Mrs. Car Buyer to get up off the couch, find their checkbook and drive down to your store. They’ve seen the ads. They know this is a real, honest-to-goodness, once-in-a-lifetime chance to save BIG Money. So into the store they come, waiving their checkbook and breathlessly asking the first salesperson they see about the big sale... and your 23 year old genius of a salesperson turns his head sideways like a lost puppy and says “Sale? I don’t know anything about a big sale.”

That’ll sure let the steam out of their enthusiasm, but it’s easy to avoid. TELL YOUR SALESPEOPLE WHAT YOUR DOING! The brutal truth is if your salespeople don’t know about your big sale, your not having one! Reinforcing your sales message with your sales staff may be the single most effective thing you can do to make your advertising work better and it’s by far the least expensive. Whether you’re working in Print, Radio, TV or Direct Mail, the more aware your people are, the better equipped they’ll be to handle the traffic.

Most dealers are already doing the easy stuff: playing the TV commercial in the sales meeting and tacking Saturday’s newspaper on the bulletin board. But let’s face it most of your salespeople have been there, done that and bought that T-shirt. They’re not going to get all that excited about another TV spot or newspaper ad.

So how do you take it to the next level? By getting your salespeople involved in the process.

One company I know of has made a living in the auto industry for years by hosting sales events and CLOSING THE DOORS to the dealership for one day to get ready for the event. And what do your salespeople do while the store is closed? They hang banners and mirror tags, blow up balloons, make calls on their b-backs, tickler file and lease expiration lists, anything to get the sales force into the mindset that this sale is the real deal.

One client of ours has had the same sale every year for the last 23 years and they always have their biggest two months of the year while its going on. The concept seems straightforward enough. Split the entire dealership into two teams and compete for volume, margin and finance profits. The teams are named after the two major state university sports teams and that’s how it’s advertised.

The motivating factor though isn’t school spirit or even the cash bonuses that are handed out like candy at the banquet at the end of the sale. What keeps the salespeople enthused throughout the event is that at that banquet the winning team gets giant 14 oz. T-bone steaks char grilled to perfection, with all the accompaniments. The losing team, sure they get a little bonus money too, but when dinner is served, they get beans. Beans and lettuce for appetizers, beans for the entre and beans and ice cream for dessert. And we’re not talking about fresh off the vine, home-cooked flavorful beans. Nope, they get a can of pork and beans and a spoon.

It’s all done in fun, and everybody has a good time. But at the heart of the matter, it’s serious business. Those salespeople know exactly what’s going on and the veterans are just as excited as the green peas.

Reinforcing the sales message is the primary benefit of doing off site or tent sales too. Moving the inventory, setting up the temporary sales area, working in a new environment all help convince the staff that this is a REAL SALE!

The great thing is that almost everything you do to reinforce the sales message with the sales staff also reinforces the sales message with consumers.

Let’s go back to Mr. and Mrs. Car Buyer. They’ve been hearing your spots on the radio, saw a commercial during the news last night, got the direct mail piece in the mail yesterday and this morning they read your ad in the newspaper. That’s pretty good: multiple impressions through multiple modes of contact. You’ve hammered the message home.

But what happens when they walk in the store? If the salespeople are sitting around watching a baseball game, if the only balloons they see are attached to a flower arrangement from the receptionist’s boyfriend, if the only banners are some generic thing the factory sent last fall with the new models, if your store doesn’t look like there’s a big sale going on, all of that money you spent pumping them up and reeling them in in the first place goes right down the drain.

Too many dealers think that advertising is separate from the sales process: Advertising brings in the traffic, salespeople close the deal. That may sound reasonable, but you don’t have to let your expensive advertising message die at the front door.

Bring the message onto the sales lot with Point of Purchase materials- Banners and Balloons, Poster and Pennants. Make the place look like something big is going on.

Bring the message onto the sales floor with an informed and enthusiastic sales force that not only knows you’re having a big sale, but REALLY BELIEVES you’re having a big sale.

If you fully integrate your advertising message into the sales process, you’ll bring in more traffic and close more deals.

Used Car Sales Stable

2008-12-02T16:38:00.002-06:00

Automotive Digest interviews Manheim's Thomas Webb who reports that used car sales are showing less volatility than new car sales. While not exactly a shining beacon of hope, this does give dealers something to work with.

Dealers have always recognized that used vehicles are a pretty stable industry. It is not countercyclical, but it is less cyclical. Therefore, there are always opportunities out there. It would be wrong to say that it is not a tough time right now in terms of the used vehicle market, again, because of the credit conditions. The unit volumes are down, and the grosses are narrowing. In terms of counteracting that, it is always the case that you have got to get what your buyers want, know your marketplace and know what is selling. That is changing. It changes quickly. And, especially this time in terms of the credit condition, you have to look at what you have to pay for that vehicle at acquisition and what kind of loan you can get on that vehicle. The loan-to-value ratios -- sometimes the books are not quite up to speed. Sometimes there are always vehicles that you can buy behind-book, which is helpful in terms of taking care of some of the credit problems that are out there.

What do you see for next year? Are we going to see an increase in used car sales?

I would expect that used vehicle sales next year will be relatively flat. I am hopeful that dealers' margins will improve, that their ability to turn their inventory faster will occur. I think there is actually some benefit in terms of what is going on in the credit side like we talked about and some of those funding issues. When dealers really realize how dear money is, they realize that they have to turn inventory faster.

Automotive Advertising Down 10% in 2008

2008-11-20T13:27:00.001-06:00

The Big Three U.S. automotive manufacturers have cut their advertising dollars this year while most foreign manufacturers are increasing their budgets

Through July 2008, Ford and Chrysler each spent 22% less on advertising than they did in 2007, while General Motors Corp. cut its ad spending by 6%, according to data from Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Across the entire automotive industry through July, advertising expenditures fell 10%.

Meanwhile, Honda spent 13% more in the first seven months of 2008 compared to the same period in 2007, while Daimler AG increased its spending by 48%. Volkswagen posted a 23% increase. Mazda increased its outlay of ad dollars by 4%.

Hyundai and Nissan decreased their automotive adverting and Toyota was unchanged through the first seven months, although surely that changed recently with the ubiquitous SAVED BY ZERO campaign:

End of The Year TV Spot

2008-11-11T20:22:00.001-06:00

Voice Over Legend Dies

2008-09-02T13:39:00.001-05:00

Don Lafontaine, maybe the most recognized ad voice in the world, passed away today. The man had the pipes:

Year End Wrap Up Toyota TV spot

2007-12-09T14:01:00.001-06:00

What Vehicles Are People Searching For

2007-10-03T11:50:00.000-05:00

CAMPBELL, Calif. — IntelliChoice.com recently released its ranking for the most researched new vehicles in September.

In order, vehicles that scored the highest total number of searches for the month include:

1. Honda Accord

2. Toyota Camry

3. Honda Civic

4. Toyota Tacoma

5. Honda CR-V

6. Nissan Altima

7. Toyota Highlander

8. Toyota Rav4

9. Chevrolet Silverado

10. Mazda3

"With all the great press that the new Accord is getting, it's no surprise that it came out on top as our most-researched vehicle," explained James Bell, publisher and editor of IntelliChoice.com.

"It's set to give the Camry, and the new sedans coming out from Ford and General Motors, a run for their money. Also, because we don't segment the most researched vehicles by year, we can see the brand equity of these models. That many of them have made our annual list of Best Overall Values of the Year shows that folks who do their homework tend to be smart buyers," he continued.

By brand name, the most researched new vehicles at IntelliChoice.com belonged to Toyota. For used vehicles, Ford came out on top.

Buyers Moving On Down

2007-09-20T19:37:00.000-05:00

Consumers are starting to downsize into smaller vehicles, according to recent customer data analyzed by LeaseTrader.com.

LeaseTrader, which works with customers who want to transfer their car leases, reports a growing percentage of its customers are exiting leases on larger cars so they get into smaller ones.

The company reports roughly 15 percent of its customers are transferring out of their leases with that intention.

"That's a significantly large percentage for this business," says LeaseTrader.com founder and CEO Sergio Stiberman in a release. "You're talking about a noticeable shift in customer preference which we expect to resonate with the major car companies."

Heavy Radio Listeners May Be More Likely Big Three Buyers

2007-09-05T02:08:00.000-05:00

Domestic auto manufactures may be more effective in stimulating sales if they increased their advertising investment in radio, according to the finding of a study by The Media Audit, the company which is bidding against Arbitron on the U.S. electronic radio ratings contract.

A telephone study of 17,395 adults planning to purchase a vehicle in the next year showed that better than 1 in 5 planned purchasers are heavy radio listeners. Of all the major media, radio had the highest proportion of planned vehicle purchasers.

"Radio stations and the amount of time consumers spend with each of the other media are a reflection of a person's lifestyle" explained Jim Higginbotham head of research and Chairman of The Media Audit. "So too, automotive preference is a reflection of a lifestyle. Thus it is not surprising that there is a correlation between media consumption and product consumption. There's a definite media skew for advertisers to consider. In the auto category, heavy radio listeners are skewed towards domestic vehicle purchases while heavy internet users are skewed towards foreign vehicles purchases."

Average Car Payment over $500, term length below 60 months

2007-08-17T11:54:00.000-05:00

BY SARAH A. WEBSTER

DETROIT FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

Average monthly auto payments for American consumers were above $500 for the fourth straight month, according to a Morgan Stanley analysis of June consumer credit data from the Federal Reserve Board.

In only one month in the previous four years was the average payment above the $500 mark.

The increasing payments are "a cause for concern" and suggest automakers face a tough auto market going forward, Morgan Stanley analyst Jonathan Steinmetz wrote in a report to investors Monday.

Steinmetz said the results show a decrease in affordability, which might direct consumers to less-expensive models.

"We do not believe it is a coincidence that higher monthly payments are occurring simultaneously with weaker vehicle sales," he wrote.

According to data released by the Federal Reserve, monthly payments in June rose to $514, up 5.2% compared with the same month a year ago and the highest amount since January 2002.

"The biggest driver of the higher payment is a decrease in loan maturity," he wrote.

That means consumers are opting for shorter loans. The average maturity of loans fell from 62 months a year ago to 58 months this June, the Federal Reserve data show.

Marketplace Sees Small Truck Sales Decline

2007-07-13T02:32:00.000-05:00

By David Piestrzynski

With the small-truck segment declining steadily in the new- and used-car markets for more than five years, some analysts say manufacturers will soon ax poor-selling models.
No. 1 on the hit list is the Ford Ranger.
According to AutoData Corp., Ranger sales declined to 92,420 units in 2006 from 330,000 in 2000. As of May, Ford dealers had sold 35,598 Rangers.
Catherine Madden, a senior analyst at the Detroit-based research firm Global Insight, said Ford will remain in the small-truck segment.
But she said her company forecasts Ford will place the Ranger on hiatus at the end of 2008.
“They’ll likely import something from Thailand to compete in this segment in 2012,” Madden said.
The lack of demand for small trucks is also showing on the used side.
Manheim is seeing fewer light trucks roll through its lanes.
According to Tom Webb, Manheim’s chief economist, compact pick-ups represented 3.2 percent of the company’s auction sales in 2006, down from 5.8 percent in 2002.
He said consumers are starting to see the price line blurred between compact and full-size trucks.
“Obviously, everybody wants bigger cabs,” Webb said.
“As for price point, people feel they’re better off with a full-size truck.”
According to a study by Edmunds.com, if you look at the prices, a 2007 Ford F-150 costs only $4,000 more than a 2007 Ford Ranger.
Ford has no official plans for discontinuing the Ranger.
“We’ve made no such announcement and you will see the 2008 Rangers coming out soon,” said Ford’s Truck Communications Manager Wes Sherwood.
According to Kevin Collins, the chairman of Ford’s Dealer Council, Ford is more likely to cut production rather than kill the Ranger altogether.
“They’ll probably trim it back,” he said. “If you lock in production at a certain number, you’re not going to end up building a glut of vehicles.
“Overcapacity is where they get killed from an expense standpoint.”
Ford has admitted it will be altering the Ranger’s production. Sherwood said the manufacturer will be shutting down its St. Paul, Minn., production plant where the pick-up is built. A shutdown date has not been set.
Other manufacturers are also seeing less demand for compact pickups.
In 2005, there were 128,359 Chevrolet Colorado’s sold, but the manufacturer has failed to hit that mark since then. According to AutoData Corp., the total fell below 100,000 in 2006 and as of May, 34,265 Colorado’s have been sold.
In 2000, Dodge dealers sold more than 177,000 Dakotas, but sales have declined. In 2006, Dakota sales had fallen to 76,098, according to AutoData Corp. The trend for Chrysler appears to be continuing into 2007. As of May, the manufacturer had sold 24,343 Dakotas.
“It’s clearly a shrinking segment, but the Ranger still has good resale value,” Collins said. “Like many vehicles, it has a built-in value in the used-car market.”
He said while sales are down on the new-car side, used Rangers have been easy to move at Bill Collins Ford in Louisville, Ky.
“There are still a lot of people who need the bed for storage and hauling,” Collins said, “but not everyone needs as much space as a full-size truck provides.”
These vehicles are easy to recondition, Collins said.
“Typically, you just have to replace the bedliner and it’s ready for resale,” he said.
The Ranger could survive because it acts as a gateway product for Ford, Madden said.
She said many consumers have purchased Rangers and later purchased an F-Series truck.
There is some good news for the used compact truck market.
Ricky Beggs, managing editor of value guide Black Book, said while sales at auction are down for small trucks, prices are up.
Since January, Black Book shows small trucks have increased in value as much as $400 on a three-month moving average.
“I think the higher price is attributed to the perception that these get better gas mileage (than full-size trucks),” Beggs said. “The truth is that if you put a 6-cylinder or a 5-cylinder engine in a Chevrolet Colorado, the gas mileage is not that different.”
Edmunds.com shows that the 2007 Ford Ranger gets up to 26 m.p.g., while the F-150 can get as high as 20 m.p.g.
According to Tom Kontos, ADESA’s vice president of analytical services, the high fuel cost could eventually increase consumer demand, and subsequently the demand for dealers to keep small trucks in stock, but as long as quantity at the auction is down, prices will likely remain firm.

The Secret To Dealer Advertising That Makes Money

2007-06-19T00:04:00.001-05:00

We tell our dealers that their advertising needs to be louder and bolder because only one percent of the market is interested in purchasing your products at any given time and you can't afford not to catch their attention.

This article in the June issue of Dealer Business Journal shows that being bold and just slightly offensive can make your message "stickier" in your potential customer's minds:

"Embrace the offensive. If you want your message to be clear, then be willing to mildly offend 15 percent of your audience. Bold statements are some of the things that the mind does not expect and it is the unexpected that keeps the audience keyed-in to your message the necessary six seconds it takes to make a lasting impression. I don’t mean be theatrical I mean be bold. Theatrics in automotive advertising are expected, and it’s difficult to keep the mind’s attention when they’ve seen and heard it before."

Just about my favorite part of my job is when we've written a radio or TV spot that walks right up to the line and then tiptoes across and I get a phone call from a broadcast station that is reluctant to run it.

If the jaded traffic director at the local station took notice and remembers the spot, you can bet it'll stick in the minds of your buyers.

Trucks and SUV Sales on the Rebound

2007-06-14T00:42:00.000-05:00

Uncertainty about gas prices may keep these 2007 Fords on the floor at Ed Schmid Ford in Ferndale.

Slight drop: Overall U.S. market in May could drop slightly as uncertainty over gas prices drives some buyers to the sidelines, some analysts predicted. May auto sales data is released June 1.

Bigger still better: Even with gasoline nationwide topping an average of $3.20 per gallon, Americans still love their trucks and SUVs. One analyst says truck sales likely will rise compared to May of last year, due largely to increased rebates and other incentives.

What goes up … Most consumers have grown accustomed to a gasoline price spike before the summer vacation season with prices dropping in the fall.

FERNDALE -- As Ian Kaminsky was shopping for a car to replace his leased Honda Accord this month, gasoline prices continued to flirt with record highs.

Petroleum, he said, was a consideration as he decided between another Accord, a Chrysler Sebring, Toyota Camry, Jeep Commander and other models. On Wednesday, he settled on an Accord, forsaking a more efficient four-cylinder engine for a V-6.

And although the larger engine may cost a little more to run, the 27-year-old radiology resident at a suburban Detroit hospital said he wanted the additional power.

"I think my income will increase enough in the next few years" to pay the incremental gasoline costs, he said as he signed the new car paperwork at Ferndale Honda just north of Detroit.

As automakers prepare to release their May U.S. sales figures on June 1, some industry analysts say Kaminsky's decision to get the larger engine is typical consumer behavior.

Americans still love bigger vehicles, and even with gasoline nationwide topping $3.20 per gallon, that probably won't change their buying habits. However, the overall U.S. market could drop slightly as uncertainty over gas prices drives some buyers to the sidelines, some analysts predicted.

"It really didn't seem like the gas prices had a direct impact in May," said Jesse Toprak, senior analyst for the Edmunds.com auto Web site, who analyzed sales data for the first three weeks of the month. "It seemed like people almost got used to it."

Sales data from the first three weeks of the month show that truck sales likely will rise compared to May of last year, due largely to increased rebates and other incentives, Toprak said.

The incentives bring the price of a truck down so far that buyers figure they can buy a lot of gasoline with the discount.

"People tend to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles when the price is higher," said Walter McManus, director of the automotive analysis division with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. "The only way automakers have managed to keep that from really killing the SUVs and pickups is with cutting prices by zero percent financing and cash incentives."

Still, a shrinking market and any move away from trucks spells trouble for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group, all of which rely more on trucks for profits than their Asian competitors.

And continued high gas prices could harm restructuring efforts under way at all three companies, the analysts said.

Overall, Toprak predicted a double-digit decline in May for Ford as it tries to cut low-profit sales to rental companies. GM, which is doing the same thing, should see a small rise, while Chrysler is likely to be up around 7 percent on the strength of its Jeep brand and because it hasn't cut fleet sales.

Toyota Motor Corp. should see slower growth than the customary double digits, mainly because it had a strong May last year, Toprak said. He also predicted small declines for Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co.

by Tom Krisher / Associated Press

The Love Affair Ain't Over

2007-01-15T11:33:00.000-06:00

It's always been the car dealer's Secret Weapon: America's Love affair with the car.

And just because most 20 year guys spent more time playing XBOX than in the driveway under their hot rod, the love affair isn't over according to this article in today's USA Today.

At it's core buying a car is an emotional experience. Your advertising has to appeal to the consumer's emotions. The excitement of getting a new toy. The fear of getting turned down for a loan or losing out on good deal.

Keeping the advertising and sales process on an emotional level is your secret weapon for closing more deals with higher margins. It may be the only one you have left.

How To Create Attention-Grabbing, Traffic-Generating, Market-Dominating Newspaper Ads To Help Your Dealership Stand Out, Get Noticed & SELL MORE CARS!

2006-04-17T17:19:00.000-05:00

Last year new car dealers spent more than $3 Billion in their local newspapers - more than every other advertising medium combined

TV and billboards may be more glamorous. Everyone may be talking about declining newspaper readership and how the information superhighway is going to relegate newspapers to the history books. But don’t bet your dealership on it. Year after year, newspaper is the meat and potatoes of most dealership advertising budgets for one simple reason - It Works!

When choosing a dealership to shop, more consumers say the newspaper is their primary source of information than radio and TV combined.

But despite the staggering amounts of money spent every week in the newspaper, despite its proven effectiveness and reliability, most dealerships’ print advertising doesn’t get the time and attention other, more glamorous, media do.

So before you rush off to shoot the new TV spot, do the live radio remote, or meet with the geek-of-the-week to work on your new web page, take a look at a few ways you can squeeze more profit out of this month’s print budget.

DOMINATE THE SATURDAY CLASSIFIEDS:

Saturday is the day that customers say they prefer for automobile shopping, so why not fish when they’re biting? Saturday morning before they go to buy a car, they buy a paper. They use the Saturday classifieds like a giant Sears and Roebuck Christmas catalog. It’s a wish book and if you want to sell more cars, you‘ve got to have the prettiest pictures.

Newspaper advertising is different than electronic media which rely on frequency to get inside the customers’ head. Newspaper advertising acts more like the yellow pages. Once someone has decided to buy, they’ll pick up the paper to decide where to shop. They use the ads to help decide where to go first, your lot or your competition’s. Instead of little ads several days a week, run as big an ad as you can afford on the day when people are looking for the car ads.

Of course Sunday paper’s have the highest readership and Sunday is the second choice for car shopping. So if it leaves you enough budget to be a major factor in Saturday’s paper and you’re open, picking up your ad for Sunday can’t hurt and you might get a nice pick up discount. As for the rest of the week, save your money and run bigger ads on the weekend.

A word of caution about the special AUTO SECTION your newspaper rep is always pitching you: The newspaper designed these special sections to boost their revenues, not yours. It’s great to have your ad running with all the others so that customers can compare, but if the section’s not running on a day you want to advertise... DON’T BUY IT!

RUN FULL COLOR:

Independent newspaper industry research shows that full color increases the readership of any ad by as much as 67% As long as you’re running at least a half a page, the extra money for full color is one of the best investments you can make.

The key word there is full color. Running only one or two colors, in some cases, will actually decrease the readership of your ad. And since the cost for the 3rd color is nominal. BUY IT!

But if you’re buying full color, make sure you get your money’s worth. Have whoever lays out your ads design it from the ground up as a full color ad, not a black and white ad with a little color splashed on for the sake of splashing on a little color. And by the same token, once you’ve got a good color ad, don’t tighten up and run it in black and white. The same effects that make a great full-color ad jump off the page turn to dark gray mush when you run it as a black and white.

RUN PAGE KILLERS:

Some research that your newspaper rep probably won’t show you (but your radio reps will) points out that a full page ad only draws a little more than a half page ad even though it costs twice as much.

Now if you can afford a full page full color ad on the weekends, run it.. You might can get a full page discount and you might can get guaranteed back page placement, which is a good thing. But if it comes down to running a full page black and white or a color page killer, run the page killer.

A 9 column x 19 inch page killer will save you almost 20% off the cost of a full page. A 8 x 17” ad saves you over 35%. And the Ultimate Page Killer, A 7 x 15”, Costs the same as a half page ad, but GUARANTEES that your ad will be at least 66% larger than anyone else on the page!

If you run a regular half page ad, either half a page tall or half a page wide, the newspaper is going to almost always put another half page ad on the same page to save on newsprint costs. That’ll cut down on the effectiveness of your ad.

But if you run a 7 x 15 the paper can’t fit another half page ad on the same page. And since the other ads won’t be in color, you can DOMINATE the page for half the cost!

PUT PRICES/PAYMENTS IN YOUR ADS:

There are two types of advertising. Image advertising that is supposed to make the customer remember you sometime down the road when they are deciding to buy. And response advertising that is designed to get the customer off the couch, looking for their checkbook so they can buy NOW!

Those call-before-midnight, spray-on hair TV infomercials are one example of response advertising. Your print advertising is another. If the weekend newspaper is like a Christmas catalog, use it like one. And just like you’ll never see an infomercial or catalog that doesn’t give specific pricing and offer information, you should ALMOST NEVER run a print ad that doesn’t give specific prices or payments.

The offers are the single most important element of any ad. How can the customer make an instant decision to get off the couch, drive to your store and buy a car if they don’t know how much you’re asking?

Discounts and rebates sound great, especially if they’re tied to a deadline. But without a price to look at the customer is just going to assume that you marked up the car $5,000 before you took off the $5,000 discount. And great prices (and especially great payments) put the notion in the consumers mind that maybe they can afford a new car after all.

One trick to use on pricing is not to end all your prices the same (like $199 and $299 a month). Odd prices like $13,893 and $187 a month give the impression that you’re cutting prices down to the bone leaving less room to negotiate.

And since we’re thinking about your print ad as a page out of a catalog, don’t forget to describe the product. A price doesn’t mean anything if the customer doesn’t know what they’re going to get for that price.

You don’t have to list everything including the kitchen sink, but if the vehicles got a V8, buyers want to know. And they want to know if its got air, automatic, power windows and locks or cruise control. What you may not want to list are option and convenience packages, because 90% of the buyers don’t know what they include. On pre-owned vehicles, list the mileage only if it’s impressively low or required by state law. And don’t list a piece of equipment unless it adds value. 4 cylinder engines, 4x2 drive and manual transmissions don’t hook any buyers and only deter those who are interested in big engines, 4 wheel drive and automatic transmissions. One last thing, try not to use CAR TALK. You may know what AT, PW, PL, PS, PB, AC, 70K miles, and ABS mean, but your customer probably doesn’t. And whatever you do, don’t put the words WON’T LAST LONG in your descriptions. Most buyers prefer cars that are going to last a while!

Like every rule, there’s an exception to the NEVER RUN A CAR WITHOUT A PRICE OR PAYMENT rule. Once or twice a year, have a gigantic, everything marked down, no holds barred, extended hours sale without mentioning prices in the ads just HYPE, HYPE, HYPE. If you don’t do it too often, these can be your best weeks of the year.

SPOTLIGHT ONE VEHICLE:

In every ad you do, try to make one vehicle stand apart from the others. Of course you want this to be your best offer on your best selling vehicle. Make that vehicle twice the size of the others. Make the price twice as tall and include twice as many features as on the others.

The optimum number of vehicle to picture in your ad is somewhere between five and nine. And by always using an odd number of cars, you can emphasize one and keep the other cars in nice orderly rows. If you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing. So pick one that you’re willing to give a little extra attention and turn on the spotlight.

REMEMBER THE 1% RULE:

On any given weekend less than 1% of the people in your city are in the market for a new or used car. These are the people you need to direct your ads at, not the other 99% who’ll probably never turn back to the classified section to see your ad. 99% of the population will never notice your ad because they have no reason to go looking through all the car ads in the weekend paper, but the one percent who are looking have their checkbooks out trying to figure out how much car they can afford.

If your managers, your spouse, your friends at the country club, your competition or even you don’t like the ad...WHO CARES?

What’s important is that the ad is exciting enough, dramatic enough and aggressive enough to get the attention of that one person out of a hundred who needs to see it.

For instance, some marketing people will tell you that you can’t have a sale every day. “Look at Wal-Mart,” they say. “They’re the number one retailer in the world because of every day low prices.”

Well that’s true. EVERY DAY low prices work for Wal-Mart, because people buy what they sell EVERY DAY. Their customers don’t have time to look around and research the best deal every time they buy a new tube of toothpaste or pack of underwear.

But people, at best, buy a new car every two or three years. And that one person out of a hundred who is seriously looking to buy a car right now, doesn’t want low prices every day, he wants the best price, TODAY!

And don’t change an ad just because your tired of seeing it. One percent of the population may be looking at your ads, but it’s a different 1% every couple of weeks and they’re not tired of your ad. Change your ad when the deals change or when it quits selling for you, not when your tired of looking at it.

USE RIGHT BRAIN/LEFT BRAIN PSYCHOLOGY:

The marketing gurus call it right brain/left brain psychology, but we simply call it pushing all the buttons. First push the emotional buttons and make your prospects think if they don’t hurry, they’re going to miss out on something.

The three most effective words you can put in any automotive ad whether it’s print, direct mail, radio or TV are SALE ENDS MONDAY! If someone’s serious about buying a car, they’ll make sure they check out what you have to offer before time runs out and, if they were really only thinking about buying a car, a good limited time offer can be the thing that pushes them off of their couch and onto your lot.

But after you’ve got them emotionally excited about buying a new car, truck or van, the logical side of their brain is still saying “Yeah, right. Why should I rush out and buy a car just because this ad says hurry?”

So what you have to do is give them a reason, a logical, believable explanation as to why this sale is different. Why this one is FOR REAL! Whether you need the room for new inventory, or you’re trying to increase your factory allocations or these vehicles were used as courtesy cars during a recent golf tournament and you can’t sell them as new. Whatever logical reason you give, one little line in your ad can shut the logical side of their brain up and let their emotions, and their checkbooks, run wild.

LET YOUR SALESPEOPLE KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING:

Picture this ugly scenario: You’ve invested thousands upon thousands of dollars into promoting your ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME, NO-HOLDS-BARRED, THIS-WEEKEND-ONLY, ALL-OUT, BLOW-OUT, SUPER SALE. Mr. and Mrs. Car Buyer see your ads and hear your ads over and over again until they are convinced this is the one buying opportunity they can’t afford to miss. So they rush into your store and ask about the big sale, only to have the salesperson respond eloquently, “HUH?”

That’ll sure let the steam out of their enthusiasm, but it’s easy to avoid. TELL YOUR SALESPEOPLE WHAT YOUR DOING! This may be the single most effective thing you can do to make your advertising work better and it’s by far the least expensive. Whether you’re working in Print, Radio, TV or Direct Mail, the more aware your people are, the better equipped they’ll be to handle the traffic.

CALL THE RESULTS TEAM:
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Now that I’ve outlined a few ways to make you’re print ads more effective, I’m going to tell you about the simplest, most effective and hassle-free way to combine all these ideas (and many, many more) to give your dealership the most attention-grabbing, traffic-generating, market-dominating print ads in your market:

Pay me $599 to design the ad for you.

Now I know what you’re saying - I’ve heard it hundreds of times before:

“Why on God’s Green Earth would any dealer in their right
mind pay you $599 to design an ad when the newspaper does it free?”

Well, I’ve already told you: Car dealers spend staggering sums of money in the paper, more than Radio, TV, Direct Mail, Magazines and Billboards combined. That means there are going to be a lot of dealers in this weekend’s paper fighting over your next up.

And the same artist who lays out your ads at the paper is laying out ads for 23 other dealerships in town. So how’s your dealership going to get noticed in all that clutter if your ad looks like every other dealer’s in town?

Your ad in this weekend’s paper is going to cost a ton of money...at least a couple of grand and probably five, ten, maybe even fifteen thousand dollars a page. So spending a few hundred more to give your dealership the most attention-grabbing, traffic-generating, market-dominating print ads in the automotive industry only makes sense.

If you want to stand out, if you want to get noticed, if you want your ads to DOMINATE the paper and bring in more traffic so you can sell more cars this weekend, you’re going to have to do something different.

And I’m not talking about slick, award-winning, lots-of-white-space ads like the factory boys are always wanting you to run.

If We Win An Award for Any Ad We Design for You, We’ll Give You a Choice--Fire Us or Slap Us!

We’re not in business to win awards, we’re in business to create results...to sell cars. And that’s what we do for dealerships just like yours all around the country... help them sell more cars. We know what works and we know what doesn’t.

But you don’t have to take our word for that. If you think a dealer would have to be crazy to pay $599 to have a newspaper ad designed, our clients say you’d be crazy not to:

“The Best Print Ads and Best Results Per Ad Dollar Spent I’ve Ever Seen!” -- David B. Farraez, Bud Davis Cadillac

“Great Results. Outstanding Service. Excellent Traffic Counts!” --Chris Blount, Regency Toyota

“The most successful campaign we’ve ever had! The Results Team definitely does give RESULTS!” --Barbie Jordan, Courtesy Cars

“PERFECT! Their ads make every other dealer’s look homemade.” -- L.H. Fallaw , Gibbes Volkswagen - Mazda

“VERY POWERFUL! The ad was everything I’d hoped for and more.” -- Dean Zampana, Faulkner Buick - Pontiac

“I’ve been in the car business for thirty one years and the Results Team work is the best I’ve ever seen. They produce results QUICKLY!” -- Doug Hall, Richmond Ford

“SALES AND TRAFFIC ARE UP! The ads bust through the clutter. My customers remember them, come in and buy cars!” -- Michael Keppel, KUHIO MOTORS

“THE RESULTS TEAM understands what I want and need. With their quick turnaround, print advertising has never been easier.” -- Jim Hinshaw, HOMER SKELTON AUTOPLEX

“I LOVE IT! Call tonight and the ad’s on my desk in the morning” -- Paul Llobell Jr., SAYVILLE FORD

“OUTSTANDING!" -- Jack Kelly, PORT CITY PONTIAC GMC

“ACCURATE & EYE-CATCHING! We are pleased.” -- Dick Olson, BISON FORD

“ADVERTISING EXCELLENCE! The Results Team saves our mangers’ time and gives us the strongest ads in the market.” -- Buddy Yarbrough, St. Augustine Olds/Cadillac

“Fast, Convenient and the best looking ads in the paper.” -- Gary Potter, BROWN & BROWN NISSAN

“Sales are up dramatically! THE RESULTS TEAM is the greatest time saver we have. Your work lets us spend our time selling cars.” John Lindberg, St. Augustine Nissan

“Creative, Timely AND Cost Effective...Thanks.” -- Cindy Yohe, KINSEL AUTOMALL

“I’ve never had an ad that drew more! They’re colorful and exciting. And to top that, service like it should be.” -- Gary Linam, CLOVERLEAF

Just pick up the phone and call us at (800) 717-1999 , tell us what cars and prices you want to feature and you’ll have a customized, camera ready ad in a couple of hours. We could have your ad at the newspaper before your newspaper rep even returns your call.

And it’s risk-free. We’ll bill you just $599 (plus shipping). If it’s not the most attention-grabbing, traffic-generating, market-dominating ad your dealership has ever run, you don’t pay for it. Simply mark the invoice denied and return it with a brief explanation of where we went wrong.

But that’s not going to happen. This will, without a doubt, be the best, most effective $599 you’ve ever spent!

Effective Advertising! Rapid Turn-around! Affordable Pricing! GUARANTEED!

There’s only three things left for you to do:

1) Pick up the phone and give us a call at (800) 717-1999 .

2) Tell your newspaper rep the ad’s on the way.

3) Call the factory and see if they can get you more inventory before Saturday!

Whether you call us or not, you’re going to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars in the newspaper this month. For another $599, you can have the most exciting, eye-catching, traffic-generating ads in the market. It’s worth a shot, and besides, since we’re even paying for the phone call, you’ve got nothing to lose! Call today, (800) 717-1999 .

Click on instant-events.com or call us at 1-800-717-1999