Interesting to see who has send-to-phone functionality on their sites and who doesn’t these days. Since I’ve been tracking it (unscientifically, for about a year or so), not much has changed. Yahoo! offers it on their local maps pages. Starbucks uses it for their store locator, but it’s pretty buried. Evite has send-to-phone for their e-invitations. Yelp and Citysearch both have it, as does cars.com. Considering that SMS/text messaging is so prevalent, useful and ubiquitous, it’s curious that not many Websites give their users an easy way to “take” little parcels of their info to their mobile phones except a few handful. Self-Direct Marketing (what we call this transfer of information made by the user) is a powerful way to jump into mobile marketing.

The 2009 Saturn Aura has been named a Best Bet for Passenger cars by Cars.com. To qualify as a Cars.com Best Bet, models must meet three quantified criteria: 

A “Good” rating in Insurance Institute for Highway Safety frontal-offset and side-impact crash tests 

Average or higher reliability ratings 

Average or higher gas mileage within their class 

“Our Best Bets help narrow down the options for buyers by vehicle class,” said Cars.com Editor in Chief Patrick Olsen. “These are vehicles that any of our editors would drive.” 

Hello to all my loyal customers who have purchased vehicles from me throughout the last 3-1/2 years. I want to take a moment to thank you for your business as well as your continued support. I wanted to provide a place where my customers could visit to leave thier comments and suggestions regarding their experience with Byers Volvo and of course me “Corey London-Internet Sales Consultant”.

As many of you know, I arrived in Columbus Ohio on September 03, 2005 only a few days after evacuating from New Orleans Louisiana due to the devestation of Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005.     Pre-Katrina

     Post Katrina

I came from a 13 year tenure in the Law Enforcement Industry and I work for L.S.U.  in New Orleans and I did not have a clue what I was going to do with the rest of my life after the storm considering all I had was a high school diploma and a Louisiana Real Estate License (which needless to  say did me no good in Ohio).

Nevertheless, I had to do something. So while temporarily residing with my wife’s family I was ask by my brother in-law if I ever thought about a career in Automobile Sales (specifically Volvo). I did not have a clue what to expect but for the sake of wife “Leslie” and my now 3 year old daughter “Tayla” I thought I better try something so I thought I would give it a shot and the rest is history!

It has been almost 4 years and I am still in the Automotive Sales Industry and I am still with the same dealership “Byers Volvo”. I want to use this platform to give my existing customers an avenue to share thier stories with the world whether negative or positive (I will not erase any comments). I also wanted to provide the general public access to a professional who is willing to act as a Pro-Bono Automotive Consultant who is willing to assist you with making the most informed car buying decision possible.

Therefore, if you are considering purchasing a new or pre-owned vehicle from any dealer in the country and you are a little reluctant  to proceed due to you being taken advantage of in the past well..that is what I am here for. Feel free to ask me anything you would like to. Ill be happy to give you the best advice that I possibly can. 

Once again, I want to thank you for visiting my blog and I look forward to your questions and comments….

Cars.com reported Friday that the 2009 Subaru Impreza, Subaru Impreza WRX STI, and Subaru Forester have each been named a Cars.com “Best Bet”.

According to the press release recently released by Cars.com, the two Subaru Imprezas were each selected as a “Best Bet for Sports Cars,” while the Subaru Forester is touted as a “Best Bet for SUVs and Crossovers.”

Click here for article.

To qualify as a Cars.com Best Bet, models must meet three quantified criteria: a “Good” rating in Insurance Institute for Highway Safety frontal-offset and side-impact crash tests; average or higher reliability ratings; and average or higher gas mileage within their class.

Check out the NewCars.com Rebate Center to research additional Subaru savings you may be looking into for your next new car purchase.

U.S. News Rankings and Reviews reported yesterday that Toyota will launch a redesigned Toyota Prius in 2010, to wage battle against new market entries like the Honda Insight and Ford Fusion.

Click here for article.

Cars.com conducted a recent review of the 2010 Prius, saying that the most significant improvement is the front seats.  “Even with the base model’s fabric seats, there’s plenty of cushioning on the bottom and plenty of support for the back. The leather seats in the top two trim levels are quite nice, and they definitely up the ante in terms of luxury.”

Check out the NewCars.com Car Chooser to research current 2009 Honda, Ford and Toyota vehicles to find the right match and price for you.

Cars.com reports that income tax credits and deductions proposed from the federal government’s economic stimulus plan are playing a major role in the car buying decision of 58% of today’s consumers. The results from a study they previously conducted were released in a report last Friday.

Click here for article.

The stimulus package allows any family making less than $250,000 or any individual making less than $125,000 to deduct the local sales and state taxes they paid on any new vehicle purchased after Feb. 17, 2009. The deduction is limited to new cars, light trucks, recreational vehicles and motorcycles that cost less than $49,500.

Check out the NewCars.com Rebate Center to research additional savings, combined with any tax breaks you may be looking into for your next new car purchase.

as an adman, i feel it’s my duty to at least comment on sunday’s advertising extravaganza.  so here’s some quick thoughts, as well as my choice for best ad of the game.

first off, godaddy.com. i don’t even know where to begin.  your spots are just terrible.  using a nascar driver as your spokesperson?  do you honestly think the average nascar fan even knows what a website is, let alone how to build one?  sidenote, i posted that snide remark on my twitter the other night and immediately some nascar fan group started following me.  the same thing happened when i posted a quote from human giant (“you know, you can’t get pregnant on the moon.”). a bunch of pregnant women started following me, and not for the usual reasons.  but i digress.

second: budweiser.  christ almighty, i know it’s the superbowl and all, but the clidesdales have to go.  it’s pure cheese.  you’re not even an american company anymore.   and bud light: your slogan is “drinkability.”  wow.  that’s like saying, “it’s definitely a beer” or “it’s not completely terrible.”  at least you had conan there to save your ass.

third: bridgestone’s “mr. and mrs. potatohead” spot was not only not-funny, but i imagine a lot of feminists would take issue with it.  i found it offensive purely because it was so bad.

fourth: kudos to denny’s.  good going on dropping the dude from the sopranos and still managing to keep the gangster theme in a way better spot.  “nannerpus” was pretty good too.

as for my favorite spots, i have two.  the runner up is “david abernathy” for cars.com.  this wes anderson-y spot (it was actually directed by lars and the real girl director craig gillespie) hits all the right beats.

my top pick actually goes to high life.  it’s only a second long, and that’s all it needs to be.  high life’s brand promise is value, and illustrating how stupid it is to spend $3 million on 30 seconds of airtime fits right in with that. plus the high-life guy is awesome.

you can watch all the spots on hulu.com, which hilariously makes you watch an ad BEFORE WATCHING AN AD.  priceless.

-srd

Like most marketing “experts,” I comment on Super Bowl ads every year. This year is no exception. Things I noticed this year:

1. There is no real consensus among pundits as to the “best” ad
2. Most everyone feels that the ad “quality” is dropping. I believe it is no longer a “spectacle” for the advertisers. This is potentially troubling because people have historically actually watched Super Bowl ads and if they stop because there is no real difference between a Super Bowl ad and a “regular” ad, then actual viewership of the ads will drop and companies will question their ad spending for the Super Bowl (as Fed Ex and GM did this year). This will impact ad revenue for the network that broadcasts the event. Who knows, maybe the Super Bowl becomes a pay-per-view event. 
3.  As always, each “expert” has their own criteria for critiquing the ads. So do I.

We believe that ads need a purpose and that the purpose needs to be achieved for the ad to be successful. I see a few possible purposes for Super Bowl ads:

1. To effectively deliver a message to the audience to induce trial
2. To reinforce the company’s or brand’s image to its users
3. To drive traffic to a website (which is a special case of inducing trial)
4. To say “we advertised on the Super Bowl,” which we have consistently felt is a bad purpose.

With these criteria in mind, my opinion about the ads is as follows (to be clear, I do not choose to comment on ads for movies or TV shows because those ads quality and effectiveness are largely tied to the product they are promoting):

1. Biggest waste: Bud Light. I counted four ads that they ran. Only one had a message and the rest had no point, and were not that entertaining either.
2. Second biggest waste was Pepsi (other than Pepsi Max, see below): None of their ads gave you a reason to care, in fact their last ad, the spoof on McGyver even asked the question, what is the point of the ad? And they ran several ads with no message. But then so did Coke.
3. Third biggest waste: GE. Now I know they own NBC so maybe their reasons for advertising were “corporate,” but why would you advertise the electric grid on the Super Bowl? What exactly does the audience care or do with the ad?
4. Best ad to drive people to a website: GoDaddy. They are masters at this and I am certain they got LOTS of web traffic as a result. Was that traffic useful in creating customers? I don’t know.
   1. A few companies used their ad as a pseudo public service announcement and also drove traffic to their site. Notably Kellogg’s and Pedigree
5. Budweiser continued their tradition of entertaining, heartwarming ads tied to the Dalmatian and the Clydesdale. They assume you know who they are and are just trying to leave with a good feeling about the company. And they do.
6. Ads that I felt were “on message” and had above average entertainment value (I don’t usually care about entertainment value except in the Super Bowl venue, or others, where it is expected) included:
   1. Castrol with the “grease monkeys”
   2. Pepsi Max and their focus on men
   3. Cars.com and the reluctance people have to buy a car due to the process. (We actually researched this phenomenon in the last recession and found people delay purchasing a car about six months to avoid/delay the pain induced by the process)
   4. Hyundai’s Car of the Year ad that featured all the other luxury brands. I thought this was effective because it was also self-deprecating
   5. Teleflora and the flowers in a box spoof
   6. Monster.com on message. I liked the CareerBuilder approach as being on message too, but the ad would have been more effective if it had been half as long
   7. Hulu.com with Alec Baldwin was on message and funny
7. Several pundits seemed to like the Doritos ads, especially the one where he throws the crystal ball through the vending machine. I found the Doritos ads to be less than useful or particularly entertaining.

So, again this year, these are my opinions on the Super Bowl of advertising. BTW, good game regardless of which team you were rooting for.

Mitch

Ik heb na een aantal dagen ziekte eindelijk nog is echt de energie om er tegenaan te gaan. En ik heb geluk dat ik juist nu de energie terugvond om iets te posten. Want er is iets magisch gebeurd in advertising & marketingland. Waar heb ik het over? De super Bowl, die gisteren, op 1 februari plaatsvond. Super Bowl sunday, die zowat het duurste reclameblok in de VS heeft. Wat zeg ik? In heel de wereld! Inderdaad, men heeft de waanzin nogmaals losgelaten op de Amerikaanse consument. Altijd wel eens boeiend om te zien als Westerling.

Even in cijfers zetten hoeveel men voor de zendtijd betaalde aan NBC:
(weet je direct ook hoeveel de hele blok kost = commercial breaks + half-time show, etc.)

2008: 186,3 miljoen dollar  –> 2009: 206 miljoen dollar…

kantlijntekening:
Ik ga voor deze ene keer mijn filmpjes laten spreken en mijzelf een beetje op de achtergrond houden. Wat ik wel verbazingwekkend vond, was hoeveel films er met een kleine sneak  in het lange reclameblok terug te vinden waren. Alleszins, veel plezier ermee! Sit back and enjoy the ride…

AD RANDOM

Pedigree Pal goes ‘Jumanji’?

Careerbuilder.com

FILMRECLAME

Transformers 2: Revenge of the fallen

Fast and the furious 4

Land of the lost:

Year one:

Star Trek:

AUTORECLAME:

Hyundai:

Audi:

Cars.com:

sneak preview:

Super Bowl ad #1:

Super Bowl ad #2:

Een link naar Adweek:

(Waar je ALLE SUPER BOWL RECLAMES rustig nog eens kan bekijken)

ADWEEK

___

Indien je er een andere mening op nahoudt dan de mijne mag je gerust reageren en jouw mening delen. Integendeel, ik heb niet liever. Eventuele suggesties zijn ook altijd welkom! Keep on reading!

This year brought us some great ads.

What were your favorites? What did you like? What did you not like?

What was the strategy?

Let’s start a conversation. Share what ads you liked. Enjoy!

–Ryan Drumwright

@Ryan_Drumwright

From Amanda Bower:

Castrol: I’m not exactly sure where this was- but I have to recuse myself. I freakin’ hate monkeys in commercials. I also hate talking babies. Something tells me I’ll be disappointed further. Also- this is an example of total wasted coverage.

Doritos and Go-Daddy: Okay, that was unfortunate. Same psychographic target market across two consecutive ads- your standard 20ish college-like guy who is living out his fantasy via the product. Crunch a Dorito? Girl loses clothes? Get on Go-Daddy? Danica Patrick loses her clothes. And they were back to back. Oops. Also- I can firmly say two things:

1) I will now as a consumer actively avoid both brands.

2) One of the fantasies that guy should have been having about Doritos is a Doritos chip that doesn’t make your breath smell like @#%.

Pedigree- Get a dog: Right. Dude, I have three dogs, you wanna see what they can do to a doorjam? That said, I like the approach of pairing themselves for adoption. I think that’s a right approach for this situation. Something more emotional and relationship-y (getting people to adopt a dog) rather than telling you their food has less fillers or whatever factual stuff. I think that’s the right tone and has a good halo effect on the brand. Also- I have to say props for trying to do something besides showing be sad, adorable about-to-be-put-down dogs to make me feel guilty enough to adopt.

Budweiser ads: Heh. I’m so in the tank for regular Budweiser commercials. I think they do reinforce the stability and strength of the brand.

Cars.com: I don’t know. I don’t know if that would make people more confident? Plus, I mean, if the guy is that amazing, isn’t he buying a new car? I dunno. Plus I kinda hated the cat by the end. But you know, I did watch it.

Hyundai: Heh, first Audi takes a shot at Lexus and BMW and now Hyundai takes a shot. Which again goes to the issue of not only being different from your market competition, but are your ads different enough from your ad competition.

E*Trade: And there are the talking babies. Although I did like the “not the venue” line. And I’m so not in the target market for this. I have had actual babies and they grow up fast enough- this pushes it. But I’m not in the target market.

Bud light- Skiing: It’s almost like a strawman argument. Beers go down like… trees? So you should drink Bud Light. Obviously.

UP movie: I have two small children so, by law, we will be seeing this UP movie. This ad does the job. Basic trailer, get it in front of lots of people, we see Pixar and off we go. It’s a short trip from awareness to behavior sometimes.

HR Block- Death “duded” him!! Awesome. I don’t totally get what it has to do with taxes though other than “death and taxes”… I mean, he doesn’t take him for screwing up the taxes… I don’t know. It shouldn’t take this much thought.

Box Flowers: I don’t get the problem with flowers in a box. Are you a jerk if you send them? Who gets flowers and thinks “Man, whoever sent this to me is a real ass.” Also, I just saw the ad literally 45 seconds ago and I can’t remember who it is for.

Cheetos: So… Cheetos are for jerks? And if so, are they the kinds of people who send box flowers?

After that touchdown at micro-seconds left in the half, nobody is going to process the next ads following the break. Everybody will be cheering, arguing, bathroom breaking, or cracking open another beer. (Or in my case, going off to do Mommy Things.) Or all of the above.

SOBE ad: Hate. I hate. Hated it last year. Hate this year. But I may be having trouble separating my consumer side from the professional side. But still, hate.

Each year millions gather around big screen TVs to watch the Super Bowl, never caring or knowing who is playing in the game. Friends go silent when there is a timeout, in anticipation of Super Bowl ads. Past history has produced some memorable spots – Coke’s Mean Joe Green ad
Reebok’s Office Linebacker: Terry Tate and of course the Original Bud Bowl with Bob Costas announcing – Budweiser went on to defeat Bud Light 27-24 and launched a whole series of spots that became a part of Super Bowl lore. A special shout out to my boss Grant Pace who wrote the first Bud Bowl ads, the only thing better was the finale that never aired (maybe I’ll post that later this week).

Even in a down economy and with :30 second spots going for a reported $3M according to Aaron Smith at CNN.com, the game represents the best chance for brands and their agencies to shine and reach a mass audience when they won’t be fast-forwarding their DVRs. According to the Neilsen Company 97.5 million watched last year’s game.

Brian Steinberg of Advertising Age does a good job highlighting the newcomers and what’s at stake for this year’s Super Bowl advertisers in Saturday’s Boston Globe .

It’s safe to say we won’t see a lot of brands just blowing their money for a good laugh or spots designed to win the USA Today Ad Meter the following day. Smart brands will take the opportunity to reinforce what they stand for and how they can help consumers in these challenging times.

The return of Monster.com will be an interesting play and I’ll be curious to see the tone they take given the number of U.S. workers looking for jobs. E-Trade is a curious play given the financial crisis and stock market volatility – I give them credit for stepping up and am interested in seeing how they plan to execute their supported “internet initiatives” which are supposed to include executions on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Equally curious is Cars.com’s participation with a :60 second spot.

I don’t know if we will see any ads that will make Super Bowl history, but the ads I will be looking out for include GE’s ad featuring the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz, Pepsi’s 3-D ad for SOBE Lifewater, and the winning Doritos user-generated commercial that was part of its “Crash The Super Bowl Contest’ that garnered more than 2,000 contestants – the best part of that contest is if the winner gets the #1 rated position in USA Today’s Ad Meter the following day they’ll win a $1 million bonus prize. Who knows maybe there is a Don Draper out there waiting to be found.

Mad Men's Don Draper

Honestly, as a PR/marketing guy you have to love brands that are willing to build platforms to interact with consumers & support their investment in a Super Bowl ad rather than just blowing money to be a part of the Big Game. Stay tuned as we are bound to see some of the spots coming out this week.

I’ll be heading down to the Super Bowl on Tuesday for an event we created, the Donruss Pop Warner Classic that will include several former Tampa Bay Buccaneers players and will be sure to shed some light on the scene and all the other things happening in Tampa.

Back in the 80’s, dealerships lived on the ads they placed in the newspaper. The paper was the only way to read the news on your time table. Whether it was in the morning or when you got home from work; the paper was there for all the news of yesterday. If you happened to be in the market for a new or used car, you would open the classified section of the paper and start going thru all the newspaper ads. Searching for the best deal, maybe making a phone call to see if the car was still on the lot. This was the way the serious shoppers handled the car buying process. This is why most car dealers spent most of there advertising dollars in print. There were many successful dealerships made on print advertising.

Now times have changed. It wasn’t more than 6 years ago that Autotrader.com and Cars.com burst on to the scene. These companies spent millions of dollars during the .com craze. Trying to establish their names and business they would list all your cars for free. Still people hadn’t migrated toward the Internet totally to shop for cars.  Most shoppers would still be looking at the paper rather than the Internet. It was only the extremely tech minded people would even think about sending an email request for a quote. Most email leads dealers received were looked upon as a being a nuisance. If they were really in the market to buy a car, they would either pick up the phone, drive by the lot, but surely they wouldn’t send an email. These people weren’t real buyers, they were kids just messing around. The talk about the Internet changing the car buying process was becoming a joke of sorts. Not many people were researching that way nor were the dealers taking any of the people seriously.

Not it’s all about taking these Internet leads seriously. A good Internet strategy is a must. Not only are you paying top dollar to advertise your cars on line with Autotrader and Cars.com  but now you are spending a good portion of your ad budget with Google and pay per click ads. In a matter of 5 years, we went from newspaper to pay per click. Trying to adjust in these times has been difficult. Keeping up with the latest trends is a daily chore. What is your click thru rate? What is the conversion rate on your campaign? Where do you rank on Google on key search terms. The Google craze is in full force and this was just a part of it. After all, you still have to deal with your own website too.

Dealer Websites are now the old classifieds of the 80’s. Now every month, you begin your month by changing the specials on your web page. Listing your inventory and  making your website presentable is a priority. Your website is the number one place customers go to shop when they are ready to buy a car. Now the Internet lead sent from your website is one of the best prospects. This is the same guy five years ago that you considered to be messing around is now a great prospect. Wow! Things have definitely changed. Even the manufacturers have pushed dealers to change their habits on responding to leads sent to the dealerships. The acceptable time frame to respond was 1 day. Now, its 1 hour. Internet managers have web leads sent directly to their cell phones so they can respond in a quick time frame. All this technology has forced dealers to adapt.

Some dealers are finding it difficult to adapt. The older dealers who have established themselves over the past few decades are struggling. Some of these dealers haven’t recognized just how important the Internet is to car sales. These dealers develop their websites but don’t update their specials. They find it too time consuming to have to maintain their sites. Have they forgotten how much time it took to lay out a newspaper ad?  What about the time it took to write out a solid radio commercial?  Still many dealers won’t update one of the most important parts of their website.

Many dealers are going out of business today. Columbus Mazda dealers realize that they must change to match toady’s environment. They have to been ready to learn and experiment with new ways to do business. Group pages like the Used Cars in Cincinnati have become a great way for dealers to list their inventories together to provide a good customer experience. Youtube is another way dealers have branched out to find their customers. Highlighting their cars and their specials on line.  These are just a few ways that some progressive dealers are reaching out to the inernet and their customers.

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