Auto Show Test Drives

The first program takes advantage of GM’s presence at some 30 auto shows around the U.S., and will coincide with the annual events. It will allow show attendees to test drive GM vehicles against those of competitors.

According to Steve Tihanyl, GM general director for marketing services, alliances, and branded entertainment, “What we are trying to do is leverage the period of the auto show to create this experience.” In fact, “One thing we know about auto shows is a lot of people who come will be in market in zero to 12 months.”

Keep reading after the jump!

Test Drive Studio

The Test Drive Studio is a new program that GM has been considering for some time. Beginning in four markets this spring, the studios are semi-permanent or permanent brick-and-mortar facilities with minimal branding.

“It’s a concept I discussed 10 years ago; now we are making it come to life,” says Tihanyl. The studios will showcase Chevrolet’s “heart of the market” products for “modern families” such as the Malibu, Traverse, and Equinox, along with competitors in respective segments.

The pilot studios will be located in Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Locations of subsequent studios will be based on ZIP code targets for Chevy products. As Chevrolet is still working out the location details, we know that they will be located in either industrial or high-traffic retail areas.

“It’s a non-threatening environment,” says Tihanyl. “It’s not pressure -filled; you can drive all the right competitive products against the [Chevys]. If you take Malibu as an example, we will also have vehicles like Camry, Accord, Ford Fusion, or Taurus, so you get a really good cluster of vehicles to experience at your own pace.”

In that regard, the goal seems to be a completely different experience than what a traditional dealership may offer, with salespeople not watching a customer’s every step. What’s more, the studio will not look like a dealership nor will it carry the Chevrolet brand.

Marketing The Studio

To market the studio, GM’s bow tie brand will invest in a broad digital advertising play and track shoppers.”So, hypothetically, if you are on Edmunds.com and shopping a Camry, we are going to offer up an opportunity to come to the Test Drive Studio in that market to compare everything you have in your shopping set right now. Our feeling is you may have not had the Malibu in your consideration set, but if you try it, you will,” said Tinahyl.

The GM Authority Take

It’s official: Chevy is on a roll! Between the upcoming Cruze, Volt and redesigned Malibu, to the sales success of its launch vehicles and the  upcoming marketing initiatives, there’s no denying that – when it comes to Chevrolet – things are abrewin’.

More specifically, both the Test Drive Studio as well as the Auto Show test drive initiatives – are excellent ways to market and get people behind the wheel of Chevrolets. The current mind set within GM seems to be that if people experience Chevy vehicles, then they’ll add them to their shortlist of possible candidates.

The Test Drive Studio approach seems to be a very effective program that will save people time in the car buying/shopping process: not having to go to multiple dealers to test drive cars will be a huge time saver! All in all, we like the “put your product where your mouth is” mindset that takes GM’s “May The Best Car Win” program one step further. The only question now is, when will Buick, GMC, and Cadillac get the same type of treatment? Keep it up, Chevy!

[Source: Marketing Daily]

The zero percent financing move is said to cover roughly 55 percent of all 2010 GM models currently on sale. Moreover, The General is also offering 0 percent financing for 72 months on remaining 2009 model inventory. In total, both incentives cover about 97 percent of what’s left on dealer lots.

Top top it all off, March is also Chevy and GMC truck month, with GM Vice President of U.S. marketing, Susan Docherty, saying “We’re going headstrong into truck month for both Chevrolet and GMC, which is a traditional play that we have normally done during March.”

But not only is March truck, reading, and college basket hoops month, it also marks the end of the first quarter of the year. Both GM and Toyota are most likely striving to capture as many last-minute sales as possible before the quarter comes to a close in an effort to have as strong a bottom line as possible. If GM succeeds, it will pile onto the previous booming months of January and February.

[Source: Automotive News via Autoblog]

No matter what you think of CR (it does err on occasion – remember the Toyota Matrix and Pontiac Vibe reviews?), the mag is perceived to have a reliable reputation. Most recently, Consumer Reports removed its “Recommended” status of any Toyota vehicle under the current recall. According to the publication’s parent company, the removal is temporary since Toyota is hard at work on righting its wrong, recalling and fixing the effected products. CR claims that the danger of unintended acceleration and lack of known repair for this problem is the reason for dropping the recommended status of the Toyota vehicles in question.

General Motors is already kicking Toyota while it’s down and Consumer Reports has begun the process of swinging its leg. All this should assist General Motors’ already-increasing market share and provide another reason for buyers to take advantage of The General’s zero percent financing with a Toyota trade.

Since the recall is temporary, the magazine will re-recommend Toyota models once everything is fixed up and the vehicles are deemed safe again. Will it then be too late for Toyota? Only time will tell…

To our luck, we also found out that the new hot-rod on the block – the all-new Chevy Camaro – is just as much of a sales conquest success as the Equinox, with VP of Sales Susan Docherty saying that 50% of Camaro buyers “traded in a competitive vehicle.”

As if that isn’t enough, the new Camaro has sold 35,000 copies and has outsold its cross-town rival, the Ford Mustang, for six consecutive months.

Again, we can’t emphasize enough how important conquest (also known as switcher) sales are to The General at this point in time. We hope GM continues the trend of taking sales away from competitors and, with the amount of class-leading products coming from The General, there’s no reason why this shouldn’t continue to be the case. That said, GM still has a lot of work to do in the foreseeable future and beyond.

[Source: GM]

More importantly, Vice President of Sales Susan Docherty reported that nearly 50 percent of Equinox buyers traded in a non-GM vehicle.

This is good news all around for The General: all GM brands need as many “switchers” as possible – especially at a time like this. (For those not current on the latest marketing speak, “switchers” are people making the switch from one brand to another.) And while we don’t know how many switchers actually traded in a competing compact or mid-size CUV (like a RAV4 or a CR-V, or Highlander), a sale is a sale – and we’re glad these buyers picked a GM product.

[Source: GM]