A VERY UNUSUAL CAR DEALER RADIO COMMERCIAL

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• Tom Richards September 14, 2012, 9:14 am

  I’d love to hear the follow-up.

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• Ted Morro September 14, 2012, 9:17 am

  Hell yeah on the follow up! I loved it 🙂

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• Keith Vachon September 14, 2012, 9:19 am

  LOL! “You think one of your pals won’t turn you in for $10g?” classic!

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• Bob Bateman September 14, 2012, 9:19 am

  Love it. I’d turn myself in for the 10g (but – I swear – I didn’t do it).

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• Tim Burt September 14, 2012, 9:34 am

  FINALLY – a car dealer ad worth listening to.

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• David Teasdale September 14, 2012, 9:35 am

  I absolutely LOVE it!!!

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• Michelle L. Eastty September 14, 2012, 9:36 am

  Hahahaha! I want to air that commercial 🙂

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• David Teasdale September 14, 2012, 9:37 am

  Me too!

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• Lisa Foster September 14, 2012, 9:38 am

  Great spot – but he talks way too fast.

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• Scott Larson September 14, 2012, 1:45 pm

  Brilliant, well done

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• Neal Angell September 18, 2012, 11:57 pm

  First off, this has to be the best car dealer commercial I’ve ever heard because they ARE turning a negative into a positive and aren’t actually trying to sell you anything. Unfortunately, you wouldn’t know that from the first few seconds because it starts out like any “typical” car dealer commercial. “Marty Giles here for Northstar Ford, and I know you’ve heard about our Family Pricing Initiative.” Yawn. I’m not in the market for a new car, I’m not interested in hearing another typical car dealer trying to sell me a new car, so at this point I’m already tuning out and pushing buttons on my stereo (it also has the typically fast read of car dealers trying to cram too much copy into 60 seconds).

  How about this for a headline? “One phone call with the right tip could put 10 grand in your hand!” Or, “When’s the last time you earned 10 thousand dollars for 30 seconds of work?” Maybe even start out with a meaner tone: “I’m looking for the no-good punks who ripped me off; turn ’em over to me and I’ll turn 10 grand over to you!” NOW you’ve got my attention and I’m interested to hear what else you have to say. I just don’t understand why every car dealer has to start every commercial with their name and where they’re from. “Hi, I’m so-and-so from XYZ Motors!” (Actually, I do understand why they do that – car dealers have enormous egos and think they know everything about advertising, and account reps won’t dare try to tell them otherwise). First, give me a reason why I should CARE. And THEN tell me who you are and where you’re from.

  And that follow-up people want to hear just might not happen (I’m sure they’ll follow up on the charitable donation, but they might not get to follow up on the reward giveaway). On Northstar’s website, http://www.northstarford.ca you can see a news story about the incident. They were robbed in June. I don’t know when they started running the “reward” commercial or what kind of frequency they were getting, but one part of the news story says, “RCMP got a few tips after the ad first ran. Then everything went quiet.” Now that the commercial is on YouTube and getting some news coverage, Marty Giles mentioned “another great tip” they’re following up on. But, as of yet, no “We caught ’em” update on their website that you would expect to see after all this hoopla (with a picture of the owner handing a giant check over to whichever charity is going to get the cash). So, to answer the question: “You think one of your pals won’t turn you in for 10 grand?” Maybe not. (And hey “Skippy,” if you’ve got so much money to invest in tons of radio advertising and huge rewards, you’d think you could invest in a little security?)

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