Representation by an ad agency causes issues. 

Without the ability to understand how and/or why vehicles are sold the way they are or need to be, it’s very easy for things to come completely off the rails due to people having opinions which all stack up on top of the other.

An old joke comes to mind: What is a camel?  A camel is a horse designed by committee. 

When everyone involved throws out thoughts and ideas without someone sounding things out and just agreeing to do whatever they are told, the message becomes so muddy the yield ends up being much lower than needed. Or even worse…the curse of the ad agency looking to generate revenue without any concern for their client.

The resume of the agency you either do business with or consider doing business with needs to be examined. Most car people agree that to work with car people successfully, one needs to be a car person as well, or they will not properly understand the reasons why things either work, or fail miserably. 

And then there’s the income component.  The more an ad agency successfully sells a dealership in a given month, the more that agency makes.

The clear alternative is to bring in an agency who has a long history of involvement in the car business. In this way, all people involved in conversations, planning meetings, training rollout, and brand management are on the same page.  Expenses can be tied back to P&L numbers that make economic sense. And, a well-rounded open dialog of how to maintain total market domination takes place on a regular basis.

The best choice for any dealership is to do business with people who also understand the industry at the retail level.