Cars.com Launches New Television Campaign

'Cars, Cars, Cars' Highlights Breadth of Inventory, Ease of Search

Editor's Note: What a coincidence; there I was, just this morning, drinking a cup of wake-me-up and enjoying a good old English muffin, when yet another Vehix commercial appeared on my TV (good thing the TV was already on, or it really would have been a shock).

Now, if you don’t have Comcast as your cable-gonif, you may not know who Vehix is. Vehix is one of those automotive websites that promises all kinds of great info but is really just there to collect leads that they sell to car dealers…like Cars.com, which I’ll get back to in a moment.

Anyway, as I understood it, Vehix was partially owned by AT&T Cable TV, which was acquired by Comcast. Because of this, Vehix gets a ton of free ads (or maybe it’s done through internal billing, whatever), which I find particularly annoying for two reasons: First, they have no real information to help in the car buying process, other than to get a lot of salesmen trying to call or email you. Second, because we don’t have a ton of free TV commercials. Oh yeah, there is a third reason I find the spots annoying; I think they suck.

So I says (Popeye style) to my beautiful bed-mate, who is also enjoying her own cuppa and English muffin, “I’m really getting tired of these lousy Vehix ads.” And I meant it, for all the reasons mentioned above.

Okay, so now we get this press release from Cars.com announcing that they’re gonna have a new multi-million dollar television campaign just so they can get you to give them your contact information so that a car salesman can call or email you – of course, they would give you a different explanation, but it’s all the same. And with us being the kind of guys we are, we want to share the news with you, rather than simply metaphorically tossing the story in the Windows Recycle Bin. But I wanted you to know how I felt about the situation.

So, without further ado, here’s the press release from Cars.com. I hope their over-priced ad agency does a better creative job than Vehix’ agency, but I’ve learned not to expect too much from over-priced ad agencies.

P.S. If you have the time, please click and visit one of the ads on our website. Yeah, it may result having a car salesman call you, but it's how we make our money, too.

Marc J. Rauch – Co-Publisher

CHICAGO, March 2, 2006: Cars.com announced plans to accelerate its 2006 media campaign with the launch of all-new television ads scheduled to debut on Monday, March 6. The campaign, "Cars, Cars, Cars," features three new spots that will air through December on ESPN and other top-rated cable networks, reaching more than 170 million viewers.

The national television campaign complements a comprehensive online marketing program and extensive local advertising support from cars.com's network of 200 newspaper and television partners.

"Valued at more than $100 million, our media investment supports our aggressive business growth goals and is expected to drive another record year of traffic to the site," said Mitch Golub, president of cars.com. "As we grow the cars.com brand and continue to make enhancements to our consumer site, we are able to deliver even more value for our advertisers."

Created and produced by DDB Chicago, the television spots build upon cars.com's award-winning "Joy" campaign by using humor to distinguish the site from others in the category and to position cars.com as an approachable resource for car shoppers.

"We use humor to personalize the experience of using cars.com to virtually kick the tires and get behind the wheel of any car you like," said Bruce Cascia, associate creative director at DDB.

The spots -- "Landscaper," "Meter Maid" and "Hydraulics" -- track car buyers through the search process on cars.com. As the online shopper browses vehicle listings in search of the right car, an outsider in each spot is surprised to see the vehicle parked in front of them change before their eyes as the car buyer works toward a final vehicle selection.

"Only the online car shoppers in each spot remain blissfully unaware of what's literally happening in the outside world as they click on a multitude of cars until finding exactly the right one," Cascia said.

"While the spots clearly emphasize the wide selection of cars available in cars.com's 1.5 million vehicle listings, we also show that cars.com allows you to do more than see cars, cars and more cars," said Dave Kasey, vice president, creative director at DDB. "What sets the site apart is the power to research features, specs and reviews in an approachable way that lets you see which car best fits into your life."

The tagline "Find the right car for you" is continued from the previous campaign, and a new mosaic end-device is introduced to strongly reinforce the cars.com brand and the breadth of the site's vehicle listings. This device uses hundreds of vehicle images to form the cars.com logo.

"While our past campaign drove site awareness to new levels and was a hit with critics and consumers, we expect the strong brand emphasis in the new spots will do even more to move the needle," said Carolyn Crafts, vice president of marketing at cars.com. "The ads further position cars.com in the minds of consumers as the one-stop destination they need when they are in the market to research, buy and sell a car."

ESPN continues to be at the center of cars.com's television buy, with ads featured in popular programs such as "SportsCenter" -- in which cars.com will be a sponsor of "Top-Ten" and "Closing Number" features -- "Baseball Tonight," "Pardon the Interruption" and many more. Spots are also scheduled to air during ESPN's live sporting events, including Major League Baseball, the NBA and PGA Golf. For the first time, cars.com will also be the exclusive sponsor of Saturday Afternoon College Football on ESPN.

In addition to a targeted audience of sports viewers, the campaign will reach a broad audience of men and women with spots and unique sponsorships running on original cable programming and syndicated hits on top cable networks including Discovery, Food Network, TBS, TLC, TNT, USA and WGN.