Advertising: Salesmanship vs. Fraud
By Jim Boldebook
If you are able to entice a customer to visit your dealership through advertising, you have two choices when the customer arrives. Confirm their good judgement or reaffirm their skepticism. Unfortunately, deceptive or fraudulent advertising is alive and well in the 21st Century. While it's practiced by only a small minority of dealerships, a few bad apples continue to rot the barrel of perception of the automobile business in general. Even in states with tough consumer protection laws such as California, some dealers continue to violate the law and good judgement with misleading ads. These dealers believe all is fair in love, war and advertising.
The truth is that good salesmanship in advertising will bring just as many customers through the door as deception. Best of all, it's much easier to live up to honest claims! While waiting to make an advertising presentation to a dealership some years ago, several salespeople in the showroom told me they hated the dealership's present advertisements. When I asked why, the salespeople told me the ads often featured bait and switch vehicles or confusing offers. We made it clear to the owner that if we took the account, we would not be a party to deception.
One of the easiest ways to strengthen believability in an advertisement is to make your offer in a clear, uncluttered format. Fewer words in a radio ad. Less fine print and more white space in a print ad. Fewer quick-cuts in a television ad. Some dealers like to flash large sections of fine print disclaimer for a few seconds in a television ad thinking the customer won't be able to read it. Two problems with this: First, research has shown lots of unreadable fine print is a turn-off to customers and elevates their defense mechanism. Second, in many states such as California, the point size of fine print and duration on the screen is spelled out clearly in DMV regulations. In fact, California's DMV laws, some of the toughest in the nation, deal specifically with perception of the customer. If the perception is deception, you're in trouble.
Speaking of deception and California, as I wrote this article, KCBS TV Channel 2 in Los Angeles broke with a weeklong investigative report on deceptive practices in the L.A. automotive market. After three months of sending undercover shoppers wired with cameras and microphones into 14 different dealerships, the station exposed numerous instances where customers had been allegedly misled by salespeople, F&I departments and even management. One of the dealerships hammered hard by this report was an AutoNation dealership, Gunderson Chevrolet. KCBS Investigative Reporter Joel Grover's story led to a raid of Gunderson Chevrolet by the California Department of Motor Vehicle officials, confiscating and carting off thousands of files on customer transactions as news cameras watched.
I wondered how the millions of viewers in the L.A. market felt when they saw a dealership owned by the nation's top automotive retailer engaging in such practices? Isn't this the company that was going to change the way cars are sold in America? These reports are a black eye on the L.A. dealers and the car business in general. Fortunately, the report did give kudos to several dealerships in L.A. that conducted business in an above-board manner, but overall, the impression one received from the report is that automobile dealerships are not to be trusted.
The best advertising in the world has a hard time overcoming situations like this. It will take a long time for many of the dealerships in this market to overcome the effects of this condemning report.
Why do some dealerships believe the only way to sell a car is to use the same infamous "smoke and mirrors" of the 1950s? Because these dealerships have never discovered the art of salesmanship! Instead of taking the time to make a professional, creative presentation on the benefits of purchasing an alarm system or an extended service contract, some of the dealerships in the investigative report simply added the items into the contract without the customer's permission. Even worse, the report gave the impression that women and minorities were easy targets for this kind of abuse. Shame...shame...shame!
In my DEALER magazine advertising column, "Advertising in The New World" published in December of 1999, I stated that dishonest businesses that lack integrity will not succeed in a world of unlimited information freedom. Dishonest advertising will hurt even basically honest businesses. As computer and Internet access increases, consumers will be able to compare products and services side by side. The more informed a customer is, the less they will tolerate the lies. Ironically, the Internet actually will be a boon to honest dealers. If the consumer is aware of the dealer's cost of a vehicle, they might come to the table with more realistic expectations.
Many dealership employees are turned off by dishonest advertising and practices. In the KCBS story, reporter Joel Grover interviewed an actual employee of Gunderson Chevrolet. In a phone conversation I had with Mr. Grover shortly after the series ran, he informed me that numerous employees from area dealerships had called in response to the investigative reports. Apparently, these employees felt as betrayed as many of the customers.
The most successful people in the automobile industry have built their businesses on a solid foundation of integrity, trust and good salesmanship. These dealerships don't engage in deceptive advertising or business practices. These are the dealers who will survive and prosper in the next 100 years.
If you'd like to obtain a copy of the investigative report aired on KCBS, please contact me at jboldebook@dealeronline.com
Jim Boldebook is President of Creative Broadcast Concepts (CBC), an advertising/marketing agency working with some of America's most successful dealerships.
