“Yes, you can use the word free in your advertising,” writes Jim Boldebook in Dealer Magazine. “No, you probably can’t use it with reference to the sale of a car, as in free options or extras as most states have now ruled there is no such thing as free anything in a car deal, but you can use the word free in a number of ways to capture the attention of your intended audience.” Oh, do tell. “The word free can be used in copy such as ‘Set yourself free from high payments with our lower lease rates.’ Or, ‘Free yourself from maintenance worries with our all inclusive maintenance program included on most of our new models.’ You can even use the word free in disassociating it’s use in your ad copy, such as: ‘While we are not allowed to say this GPS system is free, we can you say won’t pay one penny extra for it with the purchase of any new X or Y model.'” And that’s why Jim’s agency, Creative Broadcast Concepts, gets the big bucks. If you’ve already taken your blood pressure meds, Boldebook provides his dealer readers– and you!– with a specific example after the jump.
“One of the most successful free campaigns I ever witnessed in the retail automobile business was a project conducted by a Lincoln Mercury Dealers Association in a Midwestern market in the late ‘80s. For six weeks the LMDA advertised free windshield wiper inserts to customers of the area dealers as part of a tie-in to promote the lifetime warranty on service work (long since discontinued). The dealers were just amazed at the number of customers this free promotion brought through the doors of the dealership. Even more amazingly, the average repair order for the free inserts was $60. What a great use of LMDA money. What impressive proof of the power of free.”
Well, it’s impressive proof of something. Why do I suddenly feel unclean?
You feel unclean because you just read something written by a dirty filthy whore.
Ah.
Nothing is really “free.” Unless you are sharp, you will just not get as good a deal by at least the value of the “free” item.
Well as some wag once said, the words in advertising that draw the most attention are “naked,” “free,” and “beer.”
210delray :
Naked, Free, Beer???
where? where?
@ 210delray:
Don’t advertise “free beer for the naked,” then.
My local Lithia Jeep stealership in Reno offered free Wiper blades last year. They are still under my back seat for when the current ones go.
Free is dead as a marketing tool. Even if the ad promised the price of the car was $0 no one would believe it. They would know that the car was free, after a down payment equivalent to the price of the car. Or maybe the price only applies to model #666 and some devil sold the car months before the ad was placed. If you pay for the GPS as part of the car, which already includes it in some option package, you won’t pay a penny more. Of course, you won’t pay more for tires and the drivers seat either, but only in some cases.
Cars aren’t free, but lots of them will be real cheap real soon.
Say, How much for that PT Cruiser over there, the one with the 2007 sticker on it?
Shave the whales…
Does anyone buy a car based on an advertisement? I mean outside of maybe 0%, everything else is pretty much a lie IMHO.
Hello, I am selling NAKED Pencils. If you by one, I will give you either this ’05 Peugeot, ’89 BMW, ’88 Fiesta, ’87 Samurai, or ’81 Corvette…FREE of charge. $10,000 each or the equivelent in Super Bock BEER.
this is a little off topic, but even in 1999 you could find some dealers who’d more or less give you a fair shake. in september 1999 a local ford/lincoln/mercury dealer had a newspaper advertisement for ’99 taurus LXs for $13,995. my parents went over with the add to get out of their ’92 dodge spirit (a bland but perfectly good car) and drove away with one in about an hour, including test drive and paperwork. i was in the market at the time as well, and went over there. the same salesman as sold to my parents basically said “pick your color” and off i drove, with only a mention that for X dollars more i could get an SE, etc. within a month i found i couldn’t live without cruise control, a tape player (!), and power door locks (the LX at that time inexplicably came with power windows but manual door locks) so traded in at another dealer on an SE for a minimum loss. should have bought that in the first place. that was also a fairly easy transaction. i find in some ways things have gotten worse, not better. that SE lasted 4 years and 99k miles until some little college grad in her graduation present totaled my ’99 taurus. in another easy transaction, picked up a used ’02 to replace the ’99, and took that to over 100k.
What ever happened to the “no haggle” sales system? It was all the rage several years back. I never thought it worked for anybody who had a trade-in (since that’s where the adjustments in net cost still happened). However I liked the concept. Put ’em all on a website and let me do a google price search.
Since I’ve been using the same salesman at the same dealer for about 10 years now, I’ve (sort of) isolated myself from the sales experience. I still suspect that I’ve left a lot of money on the table on every deal, but never enough to kill me as a host for my salesman.
What ever happened to the “no haggle” sales system?
Simple. Customers wanted to haggle.
“We’ll beat anyone’s advertised price or your mattress is FREE! Dial 1-800-FREEEEE.”
I saw this the other day:
“The cheese in a trap is always free”