Branding: Help for the Auto Industry

Who cries for struggling auto dealers and manufacturers? It's important for many that they succeed, so I know there are deep pockets of sympathy. I wrote this back in the fall to try and help soften the barbed emotional barriers that surround the buying experience.

Today Brad and I are adding to the effort. I'm hoping my old boss and Guest BSI Author, Kevin Roberts will add his thoughts as Saatchi & Saatchi has been very successful in building the Toyota brand.

Ideally, a brand promises relevant differentiated benefits to its target audiences. Those benefits should be understandable, believable and compelling. Some brands have chosen such a compelling combination of unique benefits that they are perceived to be without peers. Those brands stand alone in their customers' consideration sets.

Here are some things that can be done to reinforce brands at auto dealerships:

•Know what your brand stands for and what makes it different
•Identify "proof points" for and "reasons to believe" your brand's promise
•Refine (and even script) your brand promise "talking points"
•Hold an employee contest to identify new ways to reinforce the brand's promise
•At staff meetings, brainstorm additional ways to reinforce the brand's promise
•Identify new ways to reinforce the brand promise with customers and potential customers at all stages of the purchase decision process, including immediately after the purchase and on an ongoing basis during usage
•Make and distribute copies of third party endorsements of your brand, especially if they extol your brand for delivering on its unique promise
•Publicly recognize employees who have done an exceptional job of reinforcing the brand's promise
•Have each employee think about and explain how he or she will reinforce the brand promise in his or her interactions with customers and potential customers
•Post the brand's promise in a place where customers will see it
•Post brand promise reinforcement tips of the week (for dealership employees)
•Assign a chief brand advocate who is responsible for developing a comprehensive brand advocacy plan at your dealership

As a specific example, for higher-end automotive brands, any or all of the following can be implemented to reinforce the brand's promise:

•Provide customers and potential customers with information/articles/newsletters on the latest advances in automotive technological innovation so they can stay "in the know"
•Create owner-oriented "white papers" on specific technology topics
•Provide owners with talking points on leading-edge automotive technology
•Compile and keep handy a comprehensive list of brand "firsts" in the industry
•Make current owners aware of the latest available technology upgrades/enhancements
for their cars
•Help current owners anticipate "next generation" enhancements
•Provide "sneak previews" of upcoming technology enhancements
•If you provide customers with product incentives or upgrades, chose ones that use leading edge technology (such as GPS, iPod, Bluetooth, digital satellite, etc.)

The bottom line: your brand will be much more successful if everyone in your dealership(s) can enthusiastically articulate your brand's unique promise. Even better: everyone in your dealership discovers and implements new ways to reinforce your brand's promise at every point of customer contact.

Comments

[Mark True]

Brilliant list of brand-based tactics , Derrick & Brad. If only one dealer in any metro area - somewhere along myriad "auto mile" parts of town - would follow these simple tips, I think the entire car buying experience would be flipped upside down.

Instead, dealers continue to sell on price and only price. And they're killing the auto industry.

We've tried to identify a courageous auto dealer in our part of the country to step out of their comfort zone and do the things you've advocated, but nobody stands out by displaying any amount of differentiation. They are too motivated by the cash manufacturers offer them to run their boring television commercials of cars on curvey roads.

Of course, Toyota - and Honda - are two of the exceptions, and they are too of the most successful brands. Hmmmmmmm?

-Mark

[Derrick Daye]

Mark,

Thanks for your comments. I've said it before, (and I sense you have too) if you make it all about money, the customer will make it all about price.

Somewhere a new breed of dealer is emerging that is putting the emphasis on the relationship versus the product. As the customer continues to drive this evolution these newcomers will multiply and the old will simply die off.

Had he lived in this age, Charles Darwin may have reminded auto dealers that, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

Sticking with Darwin, Mark, if you collect any great auto dealer specimens out there, please put them in a jar and share them with us.

Derrick

[Jeff Kershner]

Derrick, you point out some great examples on what dealers can do to help reinforce their brand. And for the life of me, I’m not sure why they do not. There are several items here that we should implement first thing tomorrow, though I’m proud to say there are many we already do.

A challenge that I see and have run across in the past is getting sales people and managers to buy-in to the concept. Branding your dealer is a long term benefit and not something that necessarily sells you a car “today” or “this month”. This is the problem that most dealers have…they have been conditioned to think short term, month to month.

Several of your examples like; "Provide customers and potential customers with information/articles/newsletters on the latest advances in automotive technological innovation so they can stay in the know", I believe can be provided to the customer in the way of a dealer blog, eNewsletter and better dealer websites. Something that plagues the automotive dealer is vendors that provide nothing more then under average performing template websites. Then again, to defend the vendors, dealers would rather to continue spending thousands a week for that same spot in the Saturday newspaper rather then using some of that budget to buy a better performing website (where 80% of the consumers are).

The automotive dealer business has been dramatically changing for the better over just the last 4 years and I think dealers will continue to shift their marketing and branding using online avenues that can in return allow dealers to better brand themselves.

[Kevin Roberts]

Toyota believes as much as we do that the people who buy the cars, drive the cars, love the cars are the ones who own the brand. If you want to be loved you have to create cars inspired by what consumers want and desire, not what a meeting of executives come up with.

That’s why the Chief Engineer for the Prius, Inoue Masao, travelled the world listening to consumers and observing them. And that's why we featured him in our latest book The Lovemarks Effect.

I remember talking to a Toyota dealer in Los Angeles who told me that if a consumer came up with something that could make the Toyota experience better, it was only a matter of time before the change was reflected in the new designs. His example was a woman who suggested more drink holders in the larger vehicles so the kids in the back could store their drinks safely too. Check it out for yourself: drink holders for everyone.

In a world where all cars start first time, you have to attract people to you by giving them special care and attention. Brands struggle to do this and so we need to move on to Lovemarks. These are not cars we are selling. They are small worlds that people spend their precious time in.

[Eli Portnoy (The Brand Man Speaks!)]

Great piece on the auto industry and dealership branding needs.
I wrote a blog piece on Ford's effort to sell off its Premier Auto Group in my blog earlier this week.
Ford could have learned a thing or two from what you wrote on a manufacturer's level.
Read the whole piece at http://theportnoygroup.typepad.com/my_weblog/ and click on Ford story in recent posts.
Eli P