Automotive Social Media Reputation Management
Monday, January 27, 2014
Audi To Equip Dealer Sales Pros With iPads
NEW ORLEANS -- Audi executives told dealers at today's make meeting that the Apple iPads that are rolling into showrooms will soon make their way to the parts and service departments.
Audi says 80 percent of its U.S. dealers have placed orders for Audi-subsidized iPads. Stores that already have iPads will be able to use Audi's software without buying new ones.
Mark Del Rosso, COO at Audi of America, told Automotive News after the meeting that the iPads will allow a salesperson to quickly show a customer color and wheel options, or explain how adaptive cruise control works.
But this is just the beginning, Del Rosso says. Parts and service are next.
"The network has responded beyond our wildest dreams," Del Rosso said. "They see the value in it."
Michelle Primm, dealer principal at Cascade Auto Group in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, said all the Audi dealers she has spoken with are getting ready to deploy iPads in their showrooms. She said the brand has taken a well-thought-out approach to make sure the iPad rollout succeeds.
"They're not the first one to do it, but they did it right," Primm said.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Eleanor: All Hail The Green Bitch Ford Mustang
I was inspired by Mike TheCar Guy's post about "Eleanor" the 1968 Ford Mustang GT featured in "Bullitt" the Steve McQueen movie made that same year. This is a little post I wanted to do out of respect for Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bissett, Robert Vaughn and the rest if the cast and crew who made this ground breaking movie which inspired so many other movies like it in the 40+ years since Bullitt.
Eleanor, that plain green "Sleeper" of a 1968 Mustang GT was featured in the famous chase scene with Steve McQueen at the wheel and set in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 1968, the movie "Bullitt" has captured the hearts of many car peeps across multiple generations.
She is a special lady who was never intended to become the legend she has, but got there through sheer charisma, willingness to get dirty and her universal cool factor with Steve McQueen showing her ability to dance dirty!
Eleanor's rise to pop culture icon was virtually unassisted by modern buzz marketing, promo campaigns or social media. Eleanor did it the hard way, winning fans 1 at a time for over 40 years.
I raise my glass and toast this beat up and abused green Ford Mustang... C'mon, say it with me:
"All hail the green bitch from the Bay Area who has surpassed so many others to become the world's most beloved and best known Ford Mustang!"
[Written and sent from Ralph Paglia's iPhone]
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Great Quote About Business and Relationships
"A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too many managers: you cannot continuously improve interdependent systems and processes until you progressively perfect interdependent, interpersonal relationships." - Stephen Covey.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Dealer Website Content: Who Is Responsible?
The ADM Community is lit up in response to a blog post by Timothy Martell titled "3 Reasons To Fire Your Website Vendor" in which he exposes multiple egregious examples of duplicated content, along with what appears to be rampant violation of copyright laws. His furor seems to be the caused primarily by the negative SEO impact when a dealer has the same content on their website as other dealerships do. There is no doubt that at a minimum Tim has exposed some very shoddy content creation and publishing practices that have been going on for a very long time...
Tim Martell squarely points his finger at OEM designated, approved or mandated dealer website suppliers.
HOWEVER, without apologizing for what may very well be a systemic failure by dealer website suppliers to collect unique content from each dealer, I must ask your opinion... Who is ultimately responsible for reviewing and either approving a dealer's website content and text based business descriptions, "why buy here" messaging and mission statements, or changing them to better reflect the dealership's actual information?
I agree with Tim Martell that the dealer website suppliers he cites have failed to serve their dealer client's best interest by insisting that each dealer provide unique and genuine content for such pages in the dealer's website... But while everyone is jumping on the band wagon of chastising the supplier, I know that ultimately their is a dealership manager who should have insisted that such crap be replaced with the dealership's authentic descriptions and statements. Who is responsible for the content that is approved and published on behalf of a dealership? When it is wrong, who should catch the errors and get them corrected?
I must ask this question because in my opinion, a dealer or GM who lets the templated and prepopulated examples of dealer description, mission statements and business policies stand "as is" on a dealership website is the competency equivalent of buying a new wallet and leaving the stock photo inserts in place, expecting people to think they are your actual wife and family. I have never let prepopulated generic website content stand as is for any dealer I worked for, and I cannot imagine the sheer marketing ineptitude of any GM or Internet Sales Manager who would.
So, as bad as Tim makes dealer website suppliers look with his article... Who REALLY is responsible for providing the unique descriptions, business philosophies and "why buy here" value propositions that most competent dealers would want to publish on their websites? Who approved the obviously generic and stunningly dull dribble that was used as a content example and filler by the dealer's website supplier?
Here is a link to the blog post on ADM Community that I am referring to:
http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/m/blogpost?id=1970539%3ABlogPost%3A514931
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