Marketing

How bad has it gotten for auto shows? It looks like the Frankfurt show is leaving Frankfurt. To be fair, the home of Germany’s financial center is one of seven cities bidding to host the next IAA, the auto-industry showcase held in odd-numbered years. But the fact that it’s even a contest after almost 70

Hyundai released an early peek at its Super Bowl ad, which takes a very Boston-centric look at one of the tech features on the new-generation 2020 Sonata sedan. The feature is technically known as Remote Smart Parking Assist, but that’s before a group of Boston-area celebrities put it though the local accent and shortened it

The first Genesis crossover is finally on the way, and the upstart brand is using the new model not just to ignite sales after struggling to build a dealer body with three sedans. It’s also leveraging the Super Bowl, celebrity couple John Legend and Chrissy Teigen, a new logo and the Young Luxury slogan to

Kia is taking a serious approach to its Super Bowl ad this year, focusing on efforts to fight homelessness while showing off the new 2021 Seltos subcompact crossover. The Korean automaker teased a clip titled “I Run For,” featuring a boy who marches into a room full of journalists and sits down in front of

Volvo Car USA promised to give away $1 million in cars to randomly selected contestants if a safety occurs during the Super Bowl on Feb. 2. Participants will design their own Volvo vehicle to win, Jim Nichols, product and technology communications manager at Volvo Car USA, told Automotive News. “The value is dependent on what

As the saying goes (kind of), when life hands you shattered windows, make T-shirts. Tesla has memorialized one of the most memorably ad-libbed vehicle unveilings in automotive history with the Cybertruck Bulletproof Tee. The shirt depicts one of the supposedly bulletproof windows that Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen broke with a steel ball on

At Andy Mohr Avon Nissan, the service lane leads directly to the sales floor. To help drive new- and used-vehicle sales, the suburban Indianapolis dealership has turned to equity mining its service department customers — determining which of them has positive equity in their car or truck that might make them candidates for a new

Huntington Beach Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram wanted to make waves when the U.S. Open of Surfing came to town last summer. The Southern California dealership’s ad team, TurnKey Marketing, decided to get in on the action via Snapchat, the growing messaging app that has a foothold among the industry’s youngest customers. TurnKey used Snapchat’s filter tool, which allows

As auto retailing shifts toward allowing consumers to buy vehicles entirely online, it behooves dealerships to do more to market and promote finance and insurance products, F&I trainers and dealership managers agree. That may mean giving the F&I department its own marketing budget. But above all, F&I pros say, it means educating consumers, before they

DETROIT — The eighth-generation Chevrolet Corvette won the 2020 North American Car of the Year while the Jeep Gladiator took the truck win, and the Kia Telluride was named top utility vehicle of the year. This year’s winners were selected by a jury of 50 American and Canadian automotive journalists — including Automotive News engineering

Hyundai released a teaser of its upcoming Super Bowl ad, with a humorous Boston-centric focus that will kick off a national marketing campaign for the new-generation 2020 Sonata. In the teaser clip, former “Saturday Night Live” regular Rachel Dratch, a Boston-area native, coaches Red Sox legend David Ortiz on the finer points of the local

DETROIT — The 2020 Detroit auto show will feature a prelude weekend event, June 5-8, to showcase European supercars. Motor Bella will feature Italian and British supercars, provided by global auto companies, local dealers and car clubs. The vehicles will be displayed in an emerging section of downtown Detroit that includes new, upscale hotels and

DETROIT – It turns out millennials don’t hate driving, after all. As the generation born between 1981 and 1996 begin to reach their family formation years, they are getting licensed to drive at the highest rate in 40 years, an analyst at Benchmark Co. said in a report Monday. Licensed drivers in the U.S. reached a

The Four Rings won’t stand alone in Manhattan — at least not this year. Audi of America will be bypassing the 2020 New York auto show in April, joining fellow German luxury brands BMW and Mercedes-Benz on the sidelines of one of the largest and most prestigious auto shows in the United States. In a

Bowling Green, Ky., has the National Corvette Museum. Milwaukee has the Harley-Davidson Museum. And now, Toledo, Ohio, aims to have a museum dedicated to Jeep, a brand that’s been closely tied to that city for nearly 80 years. A nonprofit group in Toledo says it plans to open The Jeep Experience, which would have interactive

Volkswagen Group said goodbye to the Beetle at the very end of 2019 with a little help from a Beatles song, Kevin Bacon, Andy Warhol and Andy Cohen.  A nostalgia-laden animated ad called “The Last Mile” got a significant push during New Year’s Eve TV programming, with airings on ABC, CNN, as well as digital

Workers install a 2020 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray at Little Caesars Arena, home of the Detroit Pistons and Detroit Red Wings. Tesla CEO Elon Musk had to keep his Cybertruck reveal going after two windows shattered during a demonstration that was intended to prove the electric pickup’s durability. Strikers picket GM plants in Bowling Green, Ky.,

Hyundai Motor America appointed Genesis executive Megan Gillam as director of product line management, a new position at the Korean automaker. Gillam, who began her new job this week, will lead a team of product line managers and be responsible for understanding target customers, dealer engagement levels and segment marketplace dynamics, the company said in

We don’t yet know which NFL teams will be playing in Super Bowl LIV in Miami in February, but the field of automotive advertising competitors has grown by one: Toyota. The Japanese brand said it has purchased airtime for a 60-second commercial to kick off the marketing campaign for its redesigned 2020 Highlander three-row crossover.

The Ford Mustang that Steve McQueen raced through San Francisco in Bullitt goes up for auction next month in Florida. The car, an unrestored 1968 fastback in Highland Green, is expected to fetch as much as $5 million, becoming the most expensive Mustang ever sold, Bloomberg reported. But owner Sean Kiernan, in an unusual move

CALIFORNIA CITY, Calif. — There’s not usually too much to see out in this stretch of the Mojave desert north of Los Angeles. There’s the “airplane boneyard” of retired commercial aircraft, Willow Springs raceway and Hyundai’s proving grounds, where drivers put in 2 million miles a year on 12 test courses. But a visit last

Audi will use the Super Bowl to debut a new global ad campaign. The Volkswagen Group-owned luxury brand confirmed the ad buy on Tuesday, but did not share creative details or the length of the spot. The automaker only noted to Ad Age, an affiliate of Automotive News, that it will be “occupying one of

Dream Motor Group needed extra in-house capacity to expand marketing to customers of its Mercedes-Benz dealerships across the South. For less than the cost of an employee, the dealership group stepped up its email outreach for sales and service. Only Dream didn’t hire anyone to do it. The newsletters and email messages are written, sent

DETROIT — Toyota and Lexus will remain active in auto shows around the U.S. but aim their displays and their spending more directly at consumers and less at the media, brand leaders told Automotive News on Thursday. “We are making adjustments,” said Bob Carter, head of sales for Toyota Motor North America. “Auto shows are

Lithia Motors Inc. is expanding online efforts to source used vehicles directly from consumers, reducing reliance on trade-ins and saving on auction costs. It’s all part of the public dealership group’s strategy to procure the used vehicles most likely to yield the highest margins for its dealerships. Leveraging new digital channels is a key focus

DETROIT — McLaren Automotive builds one thing and one thing only: supercars. It has no SUVs to lean on for higher volumes, nor does it have partner automakers to turn to for a parts bin. And McLaren as an automaker is still relatively young, with vehicle sales starting just eight years ago, in 2011. Despite

Aston Martin has been on a product push in the past couple of years, having refreshed and redesigned much of its sports car lineup. And now it finally has an SUV. Unveiled last week, the 2021 DBX will place the British ultraluxury brand into the bustling field of SUVs from some of the industry’s most

The arrival of Tesla Inc.’s latest attempt at automotive disruption — a high-performance cargo hauler called the Cybertruck — left Wall Street analysts befuddled and its would-be pickup competitors snickering. CEO Elon Musk had trumpeted the electric pickup for years, promising futuristic Blade Runner-inspired looks and specs that top offerings from the Detroit 3. The

The auto industry has never seen a vehicle reveal quite like the show that Tesla CEO Elon Musk put on last week. Not only is the design of Tesla’s Cybertruck so bizarre that even those in attendance weren’t sure if it was the real thing, but the event went off-script when Tesla’s chief designer, Franz

With the used-vehicle market firing on all cylinders, dealers are fiercely competing for prime inventory. This comes even as a record number of vehicles roll out of leases and return to the market — buyer demand has kept pace with supply, industry analysts note. And with no silver bullet for acquiring used cars and trucks,