Words of wisdom from Russia: some car buying customers will react more poorly than others. The customer had recently purchased the new Suzuki from the dealership and brought it back in to have a faulty shock replaced. The dealership refused. The results were probably a bit more costly than the shocks would have been. No further words of wisdom here as we do not know the exact circumstances of the "shocking" incident, but just be thankful this hasn't happened at your dealership. ...

For over a century, Oldsmobile was an iconic brand in American automaking. General Motors shuttered the division in 2009 as part of restructuring but now it is receiving a breath of life from an unexpected source: Google. Since 2010, Google has pursued the dream of putting cars on the road that did not require active driving. Their Driverless Car Program had its first official "driver" participate in a promotional video as 95%-blind Steve Mahan took a drive to get tacos in a drive-thru and picked up his dry cleaning in a computer-controlled Toyota Prius. Now, with a need to have a brand of their own, Google has purchased the rights to the Oldsmobile brand from General Motors. This move came as a shock to many until they realized that it was being announced on April 1st. ...

Some would say that social media ROI cannot be properly tracked. Others look at assumed benefits as the reason to market on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Then, there are those who say there is a direct, measurable return on the investment of money and/or time into social media. Who's right? That's the question that this infographic attempts to explore. A staggering 97% of marketers believe social media efforts have a marketing benefit for their businesses and clients. In the automotive industry through an unscientific straw poll we recently took with clients and non-clients, that number drops dramatically in automotive, hovering around 50%. Again, who's right? Regardless of which side of the fence you're on, this graphic can give you some interesting information. Click to enlarge. ...

Who needs back tires anyway, right?

Sometimes, it's good to try to soften the blow with a subtle description of damage. Then, there are times when it's best to just come out and say, "this guy's toast but it can be restored." This is one of those cases.

The automotive industry has become loaded with various high-value conferences over the past couple of years. It seems that there are 5 or 6 worth attending every years (including the Driving Sales Executive Summit, of course) so many of us find ourselves on more planes now than ever before. As we prepare for another week of car sales while ramping up for the end of the year, let's take a look at a comical view of the various people we'll meet while attending these conferences. Click to enlarge. ...

A client a couple of months ago told me that they were getting out of Dealer Rater. When Google pulled their listings out of the star rankings on Google Reviews, he felt that the value was lost. I explained to him that there was still value, and that the company would likely pivot a bit to work into a different business model surrounding reputation management. That's when the discussion turned towards "tech pivots", at which point we went through many examples. Now, we can look at some of the recent (and in one case, very old) examples of how tech companies were able to solidify their business models through pivoting. It's important to understand and recognize when a company that's entrenched in our car dealer marketing such as Dealer Rater or Foursquare performs a pivot, as well as knowing if they're going to be successful with the move. We don't want to invest too much time into something that is going to fail (anyone still have a MySpace page?). ...

It's simple. If you're reading this, comment below. That's it. Every few months, I like to take a quick status check of the community to see who's checking in, who's paying attention, who's reading the posts. Basically, I want to know who's getting a let-up on the competition by following sites like Driving Sales. It's important to hear from peers and experts. It's even more important to spark ideas about strategies that can work at your dealership. If this doesn't get double-digit comments, I will be very disappointed and may be forced to put together a rant video that will pop up all over the place. Please, save me the embarrassment. Reply. Simply say, "Here!" or anything and I'll know that the community is growing vibrantly. As a bonus, here's a quick random picture, just to get the attention of anyone who might want to skip past this post. Enjoy! ...

Over the past couple of years, Hasai has partnered with some of the best infographic teams in the non-automotive industry. Now, we have turned the highly-effective infographic-marketing program towards car dealers as part of our TK Carsites product offering for KPA. The infographic below for Pohanka Acura is a quick example of how they can be used to give a lot of information to the people in a single-page format. Infographics can be comprehensive without being exhaustive and "boring" to the readers. They are resources. They are incredible "link-bait" for SEO purposes. Perhaps most importantly, they give dealers a visually-stunning element to their websites that their visitors will enjoy and share. Click to enlarge. ...

We are big fans of "recreational reading" here at Driving Sales. The automotive industry can envelope us in ways that prevent us from having the proper perspective on things. Sometimes, it's best to take a step back and see things the way the rest of the world sees it. Every now and then, we all take a big step back. Whether through vacations, quick trips to the movies, or relaxing with a fishing pole or golf club, we need recharge our minds and prepare for what the automotive industry throws at us next. Sometimes, however, staying on point but with a slightly different spin is in order. This infographic from Mashable, Fast Company, and Techi breaks down the way that America uses and is influenced by social media. Understanding the way that people use social media is a key best practice to finding success in using it as a marketing and branding tool. Our social media services focus on sales, but sometimes it's good to simply use social media to be fun and eng...

There has been much debate over the past couple of years over the value of social media to business. Most agree that it's effective for some business types, but few would say that it has an effect on the majority of business, particularly local ones such as car dealers. In reality, social media has a place in nearly every business in the world that relies on such things as online advertising, customer reviews, and word-of-mouth word-of-click marketing. Even local businesses are able to draw tremendous benefits when they utilize social networks in the right manner. This graphic by our friends at GetSatisfaction breaks down "The Network Effect." Some will see this and still dismiss social media as a something that doesn't apply to them. Before you make those sort of judgments, ask youself something. What drove you to this article in the first place? Click to enlarge. ...

It's been hard. We know it. We've all been there. The last 3 or 4 years have posed challenges that the automotive industry hasn't seen before. Thankfully, things seem to have turned for the better in the last year or so. Much of it can be attributed to proper automotive marketing. People are buying. In many cases, we don't have enough vehicles to service them properly. This infographic by TK shows us the ins and outs of the past few years, pointing to a trend that gives hope for brighter days ahead. Click to enlarge. Embed it on your own sites with the code below. Embed this Image on Your Site: Read More

Many of us have been sales managers at one time or another. We know there is pressure associated with needing to meet goals, managing the huge range of personalities in the sales and support areas, keeping track of inventory, understanding finance, and any of another ten million things that go into doing the job right. This infographic by our friends at MindFlash gives a nice (and somewhat humorous) representation of the components of being a strong sales manager. The best sales person is not always good at being a sales manager. Conversely, a good manager may not be good at managing sales. It really takes the right person to be a strong sales manager. Are you one? Click to enlarge. With this information, is there anything you can recommend to help someone be a better sales manager? ...

Recent news of gas prices potentially dropping a little over the summer is great news for consumers, but we're still nowhere near the days of truly affordable gas. As people buy cars, reward them with a printout of this nice infographic. Our friends over at AutoMD put this one together to encourage the right maintenance and to offer tips for drivers to be able to get the most out of their vehicles. Print it out and give it to them (with your business card attached, of course). You can also embed it on your website or blog as a resource. Any time we can help our customers save money, we're building value in our relationships with them. Click to enlarge. Embed this Image on Your Site: Via: Auto Repairs ...

If there is one constant on the Internet, it's change. Remember the days when dealers would show their websites and enthusiastically say, "Yep! It's flash!" Now, of course, Flash is almost a dirty word in car dealer website design. Trends come and go. Fads pop in and pop out. Everything is changing. In web design, being on top of the latest trends are good, but it's always important to keep an eye on "what has been" and "what will always work." Identifying these things can be a challenge, of course, and so it's imperative to be ahead of the game whenever possible. To look ahead, you often have to look behind and take note of where we've been. This infographic below by our friends at KissMetrics puts it all into perspective with historical data on the evolution of web design. Click to enlarge. ...

Running a business in 2011 can be like walking through a landmine, particular in human relations. Employees seem to have more rights today than ever before and business owners must be careful not to fall into traps. Most dealerships have an "HR Lady" or gentleman who handles questions about insurance, compliance, and hiring. The prospective employees are getting better informed and running the show like this is not only old but can also be risky. How can someone relying on memos and copy machines keep up with a LinkedIn world? This Infographic by our friends at MindFlash puts it all into perspective and gives us an enjoyable view of the difference between the HR Lady and HR 2.0. Click to enlarge. ...

When a good friend of mine tried to contact me about an Infographic he was working on, I knew that it was going to be both huge and likely related to automotive. As a lead at Car Insurance Quotes, it only made sense that most of his work surrounds the car business in some way or another. When I first saw the graphic today, I was blown away. It wasn't just the longest and most detailed automotive infographic I'd ever seen. It was the longest infographic, period. I had been a long-distance friend of Muhammad Saleem for over a year when I first met him in person at Blogworld in 2009 right after speaking at the Driving Sales Executive Summit. I introduced him to another good friend who was working in social media at the time - Jared Hamilton. They hit it off, but Mu was not involved at the time in the automotive industry. Perhaps he would make a good fit at the next summit? I sat on a panel with Mu at MIT last year and the exchange was extremely compelling. Here we were at ...

During a recession, most will tighten their spending and hold off on large purchases whenever possible. As a result, industries such as real estate and automotive tend to feel the effects more than smaller retail businesses. Used car sales is the exception. In the Infographic below, you'll see that the trends over the last year are pointing to stronger sales than ever before in the pre-owned market. This can be attributed to "smart need buying" patterns that coincide with the tightening of spending during a recession. ...

This may not be able to help dealers in their quest of increasing sales, but it certainly can be entertaining. This infographic would make a nice conversation piece printed out and placed at someone's desk.



Research by Home Security.net

To be completely fair, we've only heard one side of the story. Still, it is disturbing to believe that any part or the story below could be true given that our industry is making strides towards a stronger, more ethical reputation. Regardless of whether the story is true or not, it's "true" enough to make it onto several blogs and ratings websites, including DealerRater and Consumerist (a top 4000 website in the world and top 1000 in the US according to Alexa). At this point, it no longer matters whether or not it's true. The stories are printed in trusted sites and soon a search for the dealer's name will yield these horror stories. Here is the letter from the consumer: Two weeks ago I attempted to purchase a 2010 Hyundai Elantra SE from Long Island City Hyundai in [redacted], NY. I left a $500 deposit on my credit card and $4500 via an electronic check transfer. After a lot of seemingly intentional confusion regarding matching a competitors pri...

The once-proud brand is gone. While most consider the move a good one by Alan Mulally and Ford, it still begs the question of whether or not the vehicle make that yielded songs and inspired movies could have been saved with the right strategy.

We'll never know.


[Source: Auto Insurance Quotes for Autoblog.com]

It's common for carmakers and their marketing firms to use photoshop to enhance the look of a vehicle. They can add motion, often with blurred backgrounds or smoke coming from tires.

In this case, as spotted by Jalopnik, they missed one important aspect that every moving car should have. Who's driving?



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Read more Offbeat Automotive News on this blog.

Here's a quick chuckle for Wednesday: There are right ways for two companies to work together and combine their assets and form something wonderful. Honda and Toyota, despite recent woes, have long been two of the best manufacturers when it comes to hybrids. If they ever combined their technologies, they could truly build something amazing. This, however, is not the way to do it.

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Read more Offbeat Automotive News on this blog....

Most companies large and small perform some sort of search engine optimization on their sites. It's natural, as Google is such a tremendous traffic driving machine. When we hear of large automotive publishing firms engaging in pre-school link-building spam efforts, it shocks us. Why? Because they simply do not work, and you'd think a publisher like Car and Driver would know that.

They didn't.

[caption id="attachment_45" align="aligncenter" width="497" caption="How NOT to Build Links"][/caption]

The effort here was to do a link exchange with Techcrunch, a publication that has a Google PageRank of 8/10. To put that into perspective, the LA Times website is a PR 8. It is clear that they are searching for any publication that is posting about "Ford" and trying to optimize their site to be the next Ford Buying Guide traffic recipient.

It didn't work. In fact, Techcrunch sent the email to Matt Cutts, Google's SEO Spam Czar. The lesson here is that if you're going to try link farm...

The way that men and women view driving distractions is apparent in this infographic by LeaseTrader.com. It seems that the distractions are gender-related:
Men

Road Rage - 18.3%
Eating/Drinkin - 14.7%
Checking out Other Drivers - 10.9%

Women

Kids in Car - 26.3%
Putting on Makeup - 16.6%
Messing with Radio - 10.4%

Clearly we all have our priorities wrong from time to time, regardless of sex.



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Read more Offbeat Car News on this blog....

Below, you will find the slides for the 5-year production plan that Chrysler has laid out.



Read more Automotive Industry News on this blog.

In these difficult times, it's easy to understand why many car dealers are desperately trying to get the attention of the consumers. Between the economy, improved longevity of vehicles, and uncertainty within the industry, every potential sale must be made.

Still, there are times when car dealers take it a little too far with their advertising. Sometimes, it's just a matter of going "over the top" with the advertising. Other times, they try to be slick and fail.

Then, of course, there are those that just simply fail. Enjoy.
Cute on a baby ad. Creepy on a car ad.


Subliminal Enticement


Free Gun with Car Purchase


Yes You Can... but you shouldn't have


Scratching Head: Sending the Wrong Message


Even a Minor Slight Against Your Home Town is Wrong


It Just Seems a Little... Desperate


Disco is Dead. This Ad Didn't Bring it Back.


Stereotypes are Bad. Promoting them is Worse.


No Explanation Necessary: This Video is Wrong

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Image Credits:...

Saw this at a hotel in Napa Valley, CA. I first thought it was a joke until an employee walked up and said, "Yep, had to have a Corolla towed last month."

When I pointed out that the Corolla was not only a very fuel efficient vehicle but also required a lower amount of CO2 emissions to put on the road during its building process, the hotel employee said, "That may be true, but it's the hybrid movement that we're supporting, not the fuel economy."

I thought he was joking. I chuckled. He didn't chuckle back. At this point, a little dismayed, I asked, "So what if I were to park an all-electric vehicle here. Technically, it's not a hybrid and falls under the 'All non-hybrid vehicles will be towed' rule."

He thought about it for a moment and said, "Let me go ask the front desk."

"Don't bother," I said before jumping into my V8, 4x4 Jeep Grand Cherokee.

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Read more offbeat automotive news on the Blinker Fluid Blog at Driving Sales.

Image Source: Fixr...