Omni Automotive Advertising Blog

GM Employee Discounts

That’s right. GM is bringing back the Employee Discount Pricing campaign to clear their 2008 inventory before the arrival of the new 2009 models. This is a great opportunity for buyers to get many of the GM models across the eight brands at dramatic savings. Chevrolet dealers will have the largest portion of their inventory discounted while Cadillac, Hummer, Saturn and SAAB will have their own discounts. Cadillac will even offer incentives on the CTS.

Check your local GM dealerships for more information about Employee Discounts for Everyone.

In this ad below, VW takes the intangible little extras that come along with the purchase of a vehicle (part of the Volkswagen Service program) and makes them tangible (and invisible)….. by putting a cup of coffee on them.

Find more videos like this on AdGabbe

It’s an interesting twist on the idea of the added value of service programs and guarantees, something that’s usually hard to show the consumer.
If nothing else, these intangible-turned-invisible extras sure make for a cool visual.

AutoBlog just wrote this short article revealing some teaser pics of the new Chevy Volt production model. Only two of the pics were actually of the car, the others of the team producing the model.

More interesting is the ABC News video detailing GMs desperate thrust to get the Volt completed in time for an expected 2010 release. Some skeptics don’t think that the car can be completed by that time. Of particular concern is the battery technology that will power this totally electric powered car. While battery technology has come a long way recently some wonder if the technology has advanced enough to power a vehicle for 40 miles, never mind the 400+ miles originally hinted at when Volt was first announced.

Even if the Volt should arrive on the showroom floors by the end of 2010, the price tag is expected to be somewhere in the low to mid $30,000 range. This will primarily be due to the cost of the battery itself. Will consumers be willing to put out that kind of cash for a mid sized sedan? We’ll just have to wait and see what the price of gas is in 2010.

Paul Williams over at Marketing Profs Daily fix just wrote a fantastic article detailing how Discounting Prices erodes your brand. Definitely worth the read.

But if you don’t have time to read the article, here’s a quick summary.

Basically, Williams argues that offering deep discounts and huge markdowns changes the customer perception of the value of your product. If you slash the price on new car from $17,000 to $14,000, the customer views the vehicle as $14,000 car. Even after the price goes back up, the customer will still view the car as a $14,000 car, not a $17,000 car.

Williams say the best way to woo customers without endangering your brand is to offer more value with your product, like lifetime tires, oil changes, etc. This will attract customers without hurting your brand.

A 70 year old Ohio man recently decided to upgrade his ’81 pickup for a new Chevy truck. The interesting part? He paid for half of it in change.

James Jones walked into a Cincinnati-area Chevy dealership and told the salesman he wanted to buy a Silverado. He then produced $8000 worth of quarters, dimes, half-dollars, silver dollars and Susan B. Anthonys, stored in 16 large coffee cans.

Why all the change?

“Paper money will burn, but it is hard to damage coins,” Jones said.

Fair enough. It took the staff 90 minutes to count and sort the hoard of coins; but in the end, Jones drove away in his newly upgraded pickup. 

As a former cashier, I just have one piece of advice to add: don’t get in line behind this guy at the supermarket!