Marketing

Suburban Detroit’s experimentation with an outdoor automotive festival showed plenty of promise for next year and beyond, but it also served as a reminder why auto shows traditionally have been held in climate-controlled convention halls. Bad weather forced organizers to cancel one of two media and industry days at Motor Bella, the enthusiast-geared car event

General Motors’ GMC brand announced a three-year partnership with the Marcus Graham Project to foster diverse leadership in advertising, media and marketing, and marks the organization’s first contractual, multi-year commitment with a brand. The financial commitment from GMC is earmarked to support the nonprofit’s annual iCR8 Boot Camp program, which trains aspiring marketers from non-traditional backgrounds.

In a future city envisioned by Hyundai Motor Co., streets are devoid of congestion and pedestrians. Cars travel freely down empty roads. Occasionally, a rival vehicle will sneak up from behind and cause a crash. No biggie. The driver springs from the wreckage and ambles over to an autonomous food truck and orders plates of

A while back, I came across a blog post on digital fatigue from dealership marketing company Outsell. The company noted that a proliferation of emails has made us more willing to ignore some of them. The amount of email content consumers are getting had trended upward for a few years, and then the pandemic exacerbated

DETROIT — Most of the show at the new Motor Bella event in suburban Detroit took place off the stage for its debut Tuesday. The event at M1 Concourse drew hundreds of industry representatives and media members in Pontiac, Mich., as it marked the return of a major auto show to metro Detroit and offered

The Bronco is back, and so is John Bronco, a fictitious Ford Motor Co. pitchman who was the subject of a mockumentary last year. In John Bronco Rides Again, streaming on Hulu, the title character, played by Walton Goggins, learns that Ford created a new Bronco more than 20 years after he mysteriously vanished. “I

DETROIT — An auto show is coming to suburban Detroit this week. You can expect it to be more like an amusement park for cars than the familiar indoor format that has defined Detroit’s primary auto show for decades. The new event, called Motor Bella and scheduled for Sept. 21-26, is not a replacement of

Here’s an example of dealership marketing based on first-party customer data — the data the dealership keeps about its own customers. A Ford shopper bought an F-150 pickup from Dealership A and is now searching for lease deals on a new truck. But Dealership A’s advertising provider doesn’t have visibility into the store’s sales history,

CarGurus, an Internet automotive retailing platform, has signed on to sponsor a revival of the Groucho Marx game show “You Bet Your Life” to be hosted by car-crazy comedian Jay Leno. Leno will start each episode of the nationally syndicated show, which premieres this week, by revealing the “CarGurus secret word of the day.” Viewers

BMW showed a concept car made almost entirely from recyclable materials at the Munich auto show last week. The i Vision Circular concept previews “a sustainable car of the future,” CEO Oliver Zipse said. But the future, in this case, is still a long way off — around 2040, BMW said. The concept’s design is

Before Internet browser cookies, and their eventual demise, became something he needed to know about, Bobby Sight generally didn’t consider using his dealership’s customer data as a source for advertising. Sight, vice president of Rob Sight Ford in Kansas City, Mo., primarily used that data to get in touch with customers — for sales follow-up

While Ford Motor Co. used footwear to help design a truck, Ram went in the opposite direction. Ram has partnered with clothing company Wolverine to create a line of work boots with designs inspired by its pickups. The collection is modeled after Ram’s Tradesman, Rebel and Limited trim levels. “We picked elements of each of

Police in Richmond, Va., were on the hunt last week for a tire slasher who seems to harbor a very specific automotive grudge. More than a dozen Subarus parked on the streets of a historic neighborhood had their tires cut overnight. Some vehicles had two tires sliced open, while on others all four were flat.

Jim Glover Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep- Ram-Fiat created an elaborate scene for an invite-only event to let customers check out the upcoming Jeep Grand Wagoneer. Wine and beer were flowing, hors d’oeuvres were on deck, music played and strobe lights set a festive mood in the dealership’s freshly built Jeep showroom, which opened in November. The Oklahoma store

Audi’s top executive said he believes the premium brand can nearly double its global sales volume to 3 million vehicles and maintain profit margins between 9 and 11 percent by 2030, even as it phases out internal combustion powertrains in favor of an all battery-electric lineup. Speaking to reporters via videoconference from headquarters in Ingolstadt,

If the Cadillac Lyriq was edible, what would it taste like? Cadillac asked two Michelin-star chefs in Los Angeles to figure that out. Niki Nakayama, chef-owner of N/Naka, and Jordan Kahn, chef-owner of Vespertine, prepared a five-course dinner for 150 guests inspired by the upcoming electric crossover. “There’s definitely a parallel between the way you

Matt Walsh said he thinks ads by online used-vehicle retailers Carvana and Vroom are creative and funny. Their humor, though, is based on “decades-old stereotypes” about new-car dealerships that no longer match the consumer experience franchised auto retailers provide, said Walsh, vice president of operations at Carter Myers Automotive in Charlottesville, Va. It’s a sentiment

Honda has traditionally sponsored a week of community service among its employees, dealers and suppliers that marks the June founding of American Honda Motor Co. in 1959. But after canceling last year’s effort because of the coronavirus pandemic, the automaker decided to think bigger for 2021 and made its Team Honda Week of Service last

No need to double-check the license plate on these Lyft rides before getting in. The ride-hailing company surprised some customers in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago last week by picking them up in an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. The rides included music, neon lights, free shirts, hot dog masks and a souvenir Weenie Whistle.

DETROIT — Phil Brook, the Buick and GMC marketing chief who led a splashy, wide-ranging GMC Hummer reveal, has retired from General Motors, effective Aug. 1. Molly Peck, Buick sales and marketing executive director of SAIC-GM in China, will become vice president of Buick-GMC marketing Sept. 1, GM told Automotive News. Peck, a three-decade veteran

A Maine craft brewery and a family-owned dealership group have collaborated to create a beer, but thankfully it doesn’t have a new-car smell. The Scotch ale, called Hight’s Tin Can Sailor, is being produced by Bigelow Brewing Co. in Skowhegan, Maine, to honor the Hight family’s 110th year in auto retailing. The name is a

As her headlamps brighten, Poppy awakes, a hand unplugs her charger, and she cautiously hits the road. Poppy is one of 200 self-driving vehicles in the test fleet of Cruise, the autonomous technology company majority-owned by General Motors. In a Pixar-esque short film that debuted this month, Cruise shows Poppy’s blossoming relationship over several years

DETROIT — Dodge’s move into electrification could broaden its consumer base, but executives know the success of that shift also will depend on their ability to retain buyers who have been drawn to its high-octane Hellcats and Scat Packs over the years. Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis said the automaker understands that some are leery about

In 1974, Campbell Ewald copywriter James Hartzell conceived the phrase, “baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet,” which became the basis of one of the most iconic car ads of all time. Now, Chevrolet has brought back that famous line — in the form of a Guy Fieri dish. The General Motors brand, along with

LOS ANGELES — Acura’s surprise announcement that it’s reviving the Integra name for a coming compact sedan offers hope for a return to its performance roots in the entry-level segment. Acura used an event at Monterey Car Week on Thursday that focused on the final model year of the NSX supercar to also announce the

Up in the sky above southern Norway, it’s not a bird, a plane or even Superman. It was a Ford Explorer plug-in hybrid perched 154 feet off the ground. A 21-year-old climber, Leo Ketil Boe, won a two-year lease from Ford Motor Co. by getting to the Explorer faster than 13 other competitors. It took

Subaru of America and its dealers are providing school supplies to students in more than 4,700 classrooms around the country for the upcoming year. It’s starting with 3,280 elementary schoolers in its hometown of Camden, N.J. CEO Tom Doll surprised Camden teachers with the news during a segment on “Good Morning America” last week. The

The New York International Auto Show has been canceled, a little more than two weeks before it was set to start, as COVID-19 cases spread and after state and local officials announced new safety measures, organizers said in a statement Wednesday. It marks the second-straight year the show has been canceled because of the coronavirus.

After five years of waiting and about $1 billion spent to become a sponsor, Toyota Motor Corp. has decided not to run advertisements in its home country connected to the Olympics during the Tokyo Games as concerns grow in Japan about the spread of COVID-19. Toyota and Panasonic Corp. are the only two Japanese companies

There are two schools of thought on how dealerships should approach advertising in a time of low inventory. One, said Sariah Heaton, marketing director for Jerry Seiner Dealerships in Salt Lake City, is to pull back on spending while dealerships have so few cars to sell. “A lot of dealerships are really, really slashing their