The withered desperate brand of Jose Canseco
Professional sports is like making and selling cars. There are brands, products, manufacturers, distributors, facilitators, customers, etc. In both sports and autos there is also value in brand equity, thus longevity, icons, and communities.
Brands – Evasive entities.
Brands can be cultivated through time or they can be explosive by way of a stigma. They can die out slowly, be rekindled, or disappear into thin air at the blink of an eye.
The brand of Jose Canseco seems to dangle in time like a squirming bug on fly paper despite desperate attempts to wash out its own legacy with revenge, spite, vindication, and self-justification.
Years after his futile fall from baseball greatness due to addictive steroid use in Major League Baseball, Jose Canseco sought to vindicate himself by exposing others of their shared crime with steroid use. A clear attempt for self-vindication, Congress fell right in to the trap of doing the “just” thing by bringing the accusations to public light, and at the expense of others such as Mark McGwire, Raphael Palmiero, and Sammy Sosa. It’s just devils bickering at devils. Real law would beat Canseco in the knees with a billy club, burn his books, and chase him out of town. But not Congress.
Three years later, Canseco now expresses his regrets for writing the book and exposing his ‘friends’.
In Shakespeare’s writings the protagonist is often a tragic character, which I respect. But Canseco is not tragic, he is pathetic. He cheated, betrayed his friends, and now he professes his regret. It’s pathetic because he can’t undo the damage already instigated and he doesn’t seem to realize it, nor his own habitual pathetic behavior. Or maybe he does, I don’t know.
Despite all this, sports columnists are writing about it and bloggers are blogging about it, thus keeping the Canseco brand alive. I don’t know who follows Canseco but Major League Baseball is not going down because of this. Not even the strike of ‘94 killed baseball.
When product supercedes reputation
Today I spent over 3 hours on the phone with Verizon trying to clear up a 4-month disaster-of-an-experience with said company. While on the phone, I grew amazed at my continued desire to be a Verizon customer despite the fact that in all my experiences with Verizon there should be no desire left in me to be their customer.
This is a case of a company with a product so desirable that not even a crappy customer experience can thwart off the customer. It’s called FiOS – Fiber Optic Service.
FiOS is to broadband (cable, DSL) what broadband was to dial-up. It is the most powerful residential Internet service available and it is available exclusively at this point through Verizon.
I will spare you the 3 completely ridiculous separate scenarios I have experienced with Verizon as a customer since 2001, but let there be no doubt that with this most recent one, there are few products, if any, that I would continue pursuing after such horrendous experiences with a company. FiOS seems to cut through the grime and be the exception to the rule that businesses must provide value beyond its commodities.
When it comes to selling cars, dealerships do not have this luxury. Car buyers can get a desirable product from most anywhere and so the stakes are higher for car dealers to polish their message and customer experience. I have pulled away from buying cars from my own dealership customers because of piss-poor customer service and I have gone far out of my way to purchase a vehicle from a dealership that could meet my own levels of expectation.
So if you aren’t selling FiOS, don’t count on your product compensating for a poorly executed customer experience.
PickensPlan a winning brand in the 2008 Presidential Election
Hands down to T. Boone Pickens.
Earlier in the day Tuesday I received an email from PickensPlan with the subject, “What you do right now matters to the entire Army”. It was an invite to their e-Rally after the election tonight. The email prompted me to RSVP for the rally.
Three days ago I received a similar email from PickensPlan with the subject, “3 days until the e-Rally with T. Boone!”. It was the initial invite to their e-Rally after the election Tuesday. The email prompted me to RSVP for the rally.
Tonight after the McCain/Obama town hall debate, the first commercial run was T. Boone Pickes himself inviting viewers to come discuss.
The 2 emails were complete with information and a call to action, but not overwhelming. They were a god blend of text, imagery, and video. The emails rallied 40,000 RSVPs prior to the debate. Curious to know how many attended and were possibly added.
There are some key practices being applied here that we want to see from car dealers and believe can be accomplished.
Automobiles can be vital to peoples’ interests and identities. Dealerships that can reflect this in their sales process gain an edge on the competition. Some examples include…
# Build a cause and engage the audience
A cause for a dealer can be something local, ideally something popular, entertaining, and/or beneficiary to the community. For instance, we are working with an auto group and their sponsorship in auto racing.
# Plan and coordinate events that involve attendee input
Planning and coordinating events can range from e-rallies as Pickens did to webinars and on-site events from training, education, to entertainment.
# Develop an effective capture method strategy that uses multiple media types to engage, such as TV and email.
Using multiple media types such as television and email to engage your audience and ensure their participation can be an effective way to capture peoples’ attention and sometimes their imagination.
Of course much of this is easier said than done, but Pickens really has its act together with utilizing these tools constructively.
Deciphering Advice in Automotive Internet Marketing
With today’s economy challenges hitting the auto industry pretty hard, I expect car dealers to whip out the chopping block on expenses that do not produce plentiful and immediate sales. This puts what we do at risk because our platform is about building your own brand commensurate lead generator which takes time, among other things such as focus, creativity, and timely execution.
But this begs the question that if tough economic times urge dealers to cut spending, why should they have had these expenses in the first place?
In my observations, to be somewhat cliche, dealers are apt to throw things at the wall and see what sticks. With Internet marketing still an evasive practice for car dealers, particularly with Web 2.0 concepts, I am concerned about the possible setback this could be for the dealer community. Blogging and Social Media are long-term approaches to Internet marketing and I imagine dealers turning away from these methods b\c it is difficult to see the results.
Some have suggested that dealers not pay for anything they can do for free, but I think that can be misleading advice. Time is money and while yes you can “blog” for free, blogging is a vague term that requires time which can take a dealer away from selling cars. Is it then truly appropriate for dealers to not pay for such services?
No matter what the economic times and no matter what you can and can not do for free, dealers should always consider the most cost-effective and time-efficient path to their marketing objectives. This means having reliable partners and relationships with those you trust whether they are employees, vendors, contractors, or people with which you are connected in the blogosphere. It also means dealers should be thoughtful and constructive in these relationships versus throwing money at something and sitting back waiting for results.
Keeping your dealership business profitable is certainly the goal but the path to achieve this is not with short-term strategies that make you vulnerable to the times. Now more than ever is the time for dealers to invest into their own brand and web presence and continually strive to make it bullet proof with a sound sales process.
Auto Financing Puts Crunch on Car Sales
New car sales across the nation have generally declined over the past year or so, primarily due to consumer concern and speculation about the US economy. This has resulted in an increase in used car sales for most dealers and so while new car sales quotas may have been a tougher to hit lately than normal, overall sales have been holding relatively steady for many dealerships.
But that is changing right now because of a new challenge being caused by today’s economic crisis – Auto Financing.
With the housing bubble imploding and credit freezes throughout most major banks, obtaining financing for automobiles is becoming more of a challenge now too. Banks have tougher requirements for getting a loan and are not as willing to take as much risk on car loans as they were a few months ago. Naturally, this is impacting car sales.
While data that would reflect this is still coming in, dealers are already feeling it at the dealerships. According to one report on CNNMoney.com, people are still coming in to buy cars, but they are having a more difficult time getting the car they want.
The existential aspect of this is probably good for the American soul because we as a nation have been living above our means now for decades and tougher financing requirements will curb that a bit. Today’s financial situation is certainly a cleaning up or payback hour for companies, government, and citizens. But the health factor is no medicine for car dealers who do not want to see sales declining.
Dealers today will be faced with a choice of putting their dollars into marketing and advertising programs that produce quick results to keep their sales up, or into programs that will carry them into the future. The short-term reactors will probably look good today, but after a few months when things balance out that will not be the case. Dealers that can weather the storm and pursue opportunities that carry them into tomorrow’s (restored) economic times will be the ones in the end that come out on top.
