Mercedes Benz 2013 Commercial featuring Willem Dafoe, Kate Upton and Usher

If you’ve been a regular visitor to our site over the past few weeks, you have seen our articles talking about the marketing campaign that has led up to this year’s Mercedes Super Bowl commercial. And you have likely seen all the teasers we have posted. That mostly meant seeing a whole lot of Kate Upton walking in slow motion around a car being washed. Now don’t…

Stumbleupon is one of the most interesting social media sites around, and by interesting, I mean it is a complete and total time-sink. Essentially, it's a toolbar that has a "Stumble" button you can press that will bring you to a random page on the web based on your interests. You can also upvote and downvote pages, which is how Stumbleupon gets better at finding stuff that you'll like. If something isn't already ON Stumbleupon when you vote on it, you'll be given the option to add it. This…

There was a promise silently made by social media a few years back. It was so prevalent at the 2009 round of conferences from NADA to Digital Dealer that many might have thought that social media would eventually encompass the entire internet marketing required by a dealership to be…

Here is the latest post from Google, from an employee named Dasha.  The article link is: Google Reviews and was posted today at 12:00…

Do you know what kind of population is in your area?

What is the crime rate where your dealership is located?

What is the percentage of households with college grads?

What areas have a high…

Even though last week's jobless rate increased, the market is climbing to its highest points in years and WardsAuto sees 2013 as a year of continued growth in auto and light truck sales.…

“The opinions in this blog are mine alone and not the opinions of who I work for”

If you are curious about who I work for you can click here or don't mehbe...

Ralph, you have been a mentor to me and instrumental in helping me to develop my career in Social Media and Reputation Management. Heck I found my current career on a…

For the past 40-something years, a German Wolf Researcher named Werner Freund has operated a wolf sanctuary in Saarland, Germany, where he has personally raised more than 70…

Approximately one-third of all search traffic for auto industry related terms comes from mobile devices. Half of the mobile automotive search audience performs longer term research but roughly half (49 percent)  look to make a purchase within the day. However 36 percent of…

J.D. Power and Associates released new data earlier this month in their annual "Avoider Study" that show buyers consider an average of 3.3 new vehicles during their shopping cycle. That is up from 3.1 in 2012 and 2.9 in 2011.

According to Jon Osborn, research director at…

I am always amazed at people boiling down booth bait, CarDoll, etc. to "sex sells, stupid".  Instead of that quick and shallow answer, let's think a minute or two.  About where we work.  And who we work with.

When women started working at dealerships in capacities other than the receptionist, how long do you…

Go ahead and mark this down as the unpopular answer to the common question of the day. When people ask me what the secret sauce is in any truly successful search marketing program, whether through search engine optimization or PPC, my answer is never greeted with enthusiasm. The answer: manual…

Handling Manufacturer Communications

Mike Charapp, Author, Auto Dealer Law

With NADA quickly approaching and franchise meetings on the horizon with OEMs, the time is now for dealerships to familiarize themselves with how to respond to factory…

Your business does better when it is perceived in a good light. In this day and age, it is easy for people who are unhappy with a business or a product to rant that business with unwanted negative online attention.…

One of the questions on the NCM Institute post-class surveys is, “Which of the trainings presentations or topics were the most useful to you?” One of the most prevalent answers we see…

A survey of domestic and international media and marketing executives (about half of whom are in the services/marketing or media technology business) has found that a plurality 25% see mobile as the most disruptive force in their industry. Mobile outpaced other hot trends such as social media (13%), digital (12%), free information/free…

This caught my attention as I was browsing the ad media so I am sharing the ADWEEK story on ADM.

Statistics and opinions…