That's funny…ATC hasn't performed ANY blitzes in the past 18 months. The blitzes were eliminated almost 2 years ago!

Get me down for 10 dimes on the over (lol)

Think you've been blitzed before?

Now they picked up VAuto and have another product too pitch- they will burn down your phone lines bro!

Love your name by the way. I don’t think that we are trying to fool anyone, I’m sorry that you feel that way. One of the great things about cars.com is the amount of partnerships that we have. I can’t find the exact quote at the moment, but even the illustrious Mr. Kershner pointed that strength out in a post a few months ago. We can’t be everything to everybody, but we can get our dealer partner’s inventory in front of a huge cross section by forming partnerships and exclusively supplying their classified content. It is a great product.

Quick clarification though, the $200 million spend is citing Cars.com specific branding. Sure it may be on the back of one of the Tribune or Belo properties, but it goes to building the cars.com brand. It really is no different than Chevrolet calculating a cumulative spend for tier 1 and 2 spend and local dealer marketing. The Chevrolet brand is being elevated. Hope that helps you feel better about those numbers.

Why are there disclaimers that go with this claim? It is because cars.com is including the ad dollars that their partners are spending also. WHO DOES THAT?? That is as cheesy at the newspapers coming up with a ‘readership’ # instead of circulation. Tsk tsk tsk. Just tell the truth cars.com. You have a good product. Leave it at that.

sellmorecars: AutoTrader.com does not provide the Yahoo listings. Cars.com took over that a while back. Autotrader.com gained msn autos and KBB around that same time. A move that proved to be more than wise.

This is your boss, git back to werk dammit.

Your sales are in the toilet and it’s all your fault. How many times do I have to tell you about this DealerReefer blog stuff? These Reefer’s are to be considered a hostile group and all you do is preach to them out of our sales manual.

Sellmorecars, you can’t make any money sitting on your a** typing. Git out there and make us some sales.

And remember…
When your dealers whine, refer to your AT sales manual that I wrote back in 01 and don’t deviate from it. I’d also appreciate it of you’d not put my awesome word-tracks on this no good communist Reefer blog. These are my powerful marketing tracks and we don’t want those evil bastards at Cars.com getting a hold of these custom ideas of mine.

Oh, BTW, you don’t have to tell me, I know the word-tracks are out dated. Yea, I know 99% of newspapers are worse off financially than our car dealers already are. Yes, I heard that even the NY Times is about to file for bankruptcy. We just need a new spin to make our nit-wit dealers see the light.

I need help creating a spin, but I can’t find it. I’ve read where studies show Newspaper ad rates are so over priced that they need to mark down ad rates 80% to make them viable. WE DONT WANT THAT TO HAPPEN. You see, we base our AT pricing model and establish our AT value on newsprints bloated rate card. I just don’t what to do! Newsprint is a FAILED BUSINESS MODEL that we use as a corner stone to justify our value.

I need a new spin on this, write me if you get one…

Your favorite myopic manager,
OFH
(Old, Fat and Happy)

I think that is enough (that’s not all of them) so please do me the favor and hold the Newspaper, TV and Radio reps (oh I forgot those reps only deal with dealer principles not IM’s) just as accountable. Cars.com and ATC are targeted advertising for car shoppers. It’s valuable. Thankfully our dealers know that in my area because we educate them the right way (we aren’t getting cancellations outside of store closings). We have open door policies with every OWNER of our groups and we go above and beyond to be a partner for their business. They DO NOT hold us accountable for their sales because we don’t sell cars for anyone, we provide a targeted audience and that is all we do. If I depended on some sales guy’s closing ratio I would be out of a job (80/20 rule). If a dealer told me I had to depend on their sales staff to close a deal, then we don’t sign them up. If you want to do something different in 2009 realize people don’t “shop” online, they “research” online. If you ask the right questions and know where we and Cars.com feed to you would fully understand what we are about. These conversations are much easier for us with OWNERS which is why we make the difference. If you think our company is losing money ask your traditional media reps how they are right now.