The Houston-Area Saturn Retailers were unhappy with the national advertising agency’s approach to the Saturn brands and refused to support the corporate advertising efforts. So they turned to us to create a new campaign for Saturn across media including outdoor, TV and radio.
David Taylor GMC had been in Houston since 1975 and had enjoyed a prestigious reputation with its country club atmosphere and suit-clad sales staff, while other dealerships had gone casual. With increased competition, a shift in the city’s growth patterns and overall change in luxury car-buying habits, David Taylor led the market in Buick sales, lost market share in Cadillac and continued to struggle with GMC. In 2012, the dealership was purchased and was changed to Sterling-McCall GMC and moved to a new location down the freeway.
Objectives:
Since we could not outspend our competition, we needed to create a unique, compelling advertising campaign that would make our budget work harder and stand out with fewer overall media impressions.
Strategy:
Leverage the unique blue-collar personality of Mike Sauntry, the dealership’s general manager, to leverage his truck experience and form a basis of relatability with truck buyers.
Tactics:
Incorporating television, radio, outdoor, print and online media into our plan, we created messaging around the the top reasons car buyers select a dealership: lower price (or payment) and large selection.
While most auto dealers tout these two benefits in a very direct way and, quite frankly, with very little brand differentiation, we leveraged one key point of difference: Mike Sauntry, the dealership’s General Manager, knows trucks. We combined his personality and humor into compelling television and radio ads and supported them with billboards, newspaper and online banner ads.