Auto Advertising on the Cheap
January 15, 2007 – 2:04 pmOur office was closed today for Martin Luther King Day, so I took a few minutes to pick up some things in my garage, and as I was doing that, I stumbled upon the license plate frame for my Jeep Grand Cherokee that was included when we purchased it. The dealer that we purchased it from, Overland Park Jeep, also affixed their own nameplate to the back of the vehicle, which is pretty common practice in the auto industry for both new and used cars.
Interestingly enough, our Volvo S40 from Superior Volvo did not have a dealer decal. Sure, they had a license plate frame that came with the vehicle just like everyone else, but no dealer decal. Is that because there is less competition for Volvo cars, or just a mandate from Volvo and / or the local dealership?
There is an interesting discussion about dealer decals, license plate frames and a laundry list of points of discussion over at Edmunds.com about how a car reflects your own personality.
I don’t plan on digging into that topic, but the topic I want to focus on is the free advertising that dealers get with the license plate frames and decals. With our Volvo car, the only dealer item was the license plate frame, which I took off when I replaced the paper plate with a real license plate. Same exercise when we got the real license plate for our Jeep. I left the Jeep dealer logo on the back because it was more of a hassle to get off.
Don’t get me wrong, I have received good service from both dealers, especially the Volvo dealer who has been great to deal with, and its nice that Volvo covers the service for the first 30,000 miles or so. But, I don’t want to advertise for them anymore than they want to advertise for me for free.
What surprises me is how many people leave the dealer license plate frame on their vehicle for the entire time they own it. Almost like it was required from the dealer.
From what I read online, a few people demand all dealer decals to be removed when they purchase the vehicle. I’m not that extreme, but if I don’t want their advertising on my vehicle, I want to be able to remove it easily.
On the complete opposite extreme are the driving billboards that you see where someone pays to wrap their car in a logo or some other type of advertising, such as from Adwraps , CarWrap.com, or others.
Since I was curious about why our Volvo car did not have a Superior Volvo dealer decal on it, I gave Superior Volvo a call to find out the details. Paul in sales was happy to hear from me and mentioned that it was the policy of Superior Volvo and Volvo corporate to respect the owner and the vehicle, and for that reason the do not put a dealer decal on the vehicle. Wow, what a great response.
So, oddly enough, Superior Volvo has gotten more advertising on the cheap by not plastering a decal.
Next time you are looking to purchase a vehicle, think about what their policies are in regards to simple things like dealer decals, and their response if you ask it to be removed, and you will have good insight into the dealer themselves.
Technorati Tags: Auto, Advertising, Volvo, Jeep
