With all the brands, models, and dealers these days, there’s no end to the options for the prospective car buyer. With customers spoiled for choice, car dealerships have had to get creative with their marketing. These places took it to another level.
Safari Time
One auto mall in New Jersey takes an annual walk on the wild side with its ‘Savings Safari.’ For one month out of every year, the salespeople dress up like safari guides with khaki shorts and pith helmets to come to work every day. Each day they have some sort of zoo critter for people to look at, and sometimes touch, while patrons shop. The event culminates in a one-day extravaganza of exotic fauna. On the final Sunday of the month, the showroom is filled with lions, snakes, kangaroos and other species not normally seen in the Garden State. Guests get a chance to win a trip to Disney’s Animal Kingdom while they score some great deals รับจำนำรถ.
Kickoff Return on Investment
A Massachusetts group of car dealerships invited buyers to double down on the home team in 2009 with a promotion. The group’s promotion offered people who bought cars over a particular weekend a chance to win back a chunk of their purchase price. If the New England Patriots returned a kickoff for a touchdown, they would mail the customer a check for $5,000. The salesmen found it immensely helpful as a closing tool and the dealership was playing the odds. Only about five percent of all games have a kickoff (not a punt) returned for a touchdown. But the odds don’t always play out. Brandon Tate caught a kickoff in the third quarter and took the ball 92 yards to the house for six points. While most Pats fans were celebrating, 33 of them celebrated extra hard. The car dealerships ended up cutting $165,000 worth of checks to make good on their pledge.
Go See Cal
This article would be incomplete without a tip of the proverbial cap to Cal Worthington, the godfather of zany auto ads. At one time, Cal owned 29 car dealerships throughout California and the Southwest. He was a character and a born salesman, but it was his “Go See Cal” ads that led to the Television Bureau of Advertising calling him, “probably the best-known car dealer pitchman in television history.” It started as a parody of a rival’s commercials. The rival had commercials with his dog Spot, a German shepherd. So Cal started showing up with his ‘dog Spot’ at the end of his promos as well. The shtick was that Spot was never a dog but a tiger, a hippo, a gorilla, or some other unusual beast. Cal passed away in 2013 at the age of 92. He lives on in some of the greatest bits of homespun marketing you’ll ever see.