An interesting article last month from Forbes got me thinking about the automotive industry and where we’re at in marketing. This article by Larry Downes talks about Best Buy and brick and mortar retailers competing with the internet. The part I found relevant to the automotive industry was the ideas about customers and the choices available to them. Here is a quote from the article:
“More than a decade ago, in “Unleashing the Killer App,” I wrote that while transitioning to the Internet was revolutionary for retailers, it was merely evolutionary for customers. “Ensure continuity for the customer,” I said as one of my twelve rules for building killer apps, “not yourself.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2012/01/02/why-best-buy-is-going-out-of-business-gradually/
As an industry we are still trying to catch up to the consumer and how they choose to shop. If we agree with Downes ideas about continuity then we should build our advertising strategy and management structure to accommodate this. We are still talking about products like mobile sites, live chat, text and QR like its new to the market. What we are really looking at is a strategy that’s new to us as owner/ operators. Customers have been using these to shop and communicate for some time, we need to catch up.
I just thought it was a good message, revolutionary vs. evolutionary.
Eric Wilkins
Account Manager
pgiauto.com
