A Honda dealer who will remain anonymous recently sent this email to his zone manager:
Incentives!!! Dead dead dead, mommy dead daddy dead baby dead! It’s dead. Bradley building extra inventory in itself WILL NOT produce the incremental sales we need to pick up lost market share. We need better traffic producing incentives.
I know you don’t watch a heck of a lot of TV but the competitors are very aggressive. We don’t have to do “0” but you guys have got to do more than you currently are to drive traffic and be competitive to the degree we need. With this last move I will have more than a 400 car avail! I am coiled and ready to strike but come on!
The national ads look great and getting closer to resemble a retail sales company except there is no “hook” ! Where’s the beef? The bonus bucks help close once the customers there but they don’t help get them there. Please please please express my feelings up the ladder, we need to be proactive now with marketing incentives and build the momentum going into the spring selling season. Put Honda’s bruzed pride on the shelf and let’s go!
Average age of car on the road at 10.8 yrs, all time high. Penned up demand out the wazoo , every manufacture out there is going to aggressively compete for it and if Honda uses the same old ” we are Honda we don’t have to” playbook it will be a miss. Building cars in itself will not work ( assuming the dealers ever get em ), you have to be vocal on this!
There is no shame in being competitive with the competition. Unless your not playing to win. Here I’ll say it DEALER CASH, REBATES, .09 for 60 the good stuff. Can you imagine an ad that said : First time ever Honda announces $$$$$$ REBATE on ……!
Maybe too strong but you get my point. Nothing we can’t ever get away from but much more aggressive than what we have now. Let’s be proactive and let’s open our minds, put the pride on the shelf and do what it takes to blow the competition out of the water.
Hondas intensity level is at 4 and it needs to be at 9 ! You mark my words if you don’t open youre minds and change with the industry you nothing but an olds cutlass!
Posted
John Paul Strong
John Paul Strong combines his two decades of automotive marketing experience with a team of more than 150 professionals as owner and CEO of Strong Automotive.
