Monday, September 23, 2013YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Terry Poulton’s face is a familiar one to those who watch broadcast and cable television. For three decades he has been the spokesman in car ads on TV, now for Columbiana Ford, his auto dealership in Columbiana.
“What people have realized,” he says, “is that if you do your own TV ads, it identifies you with the business and it becomes more personal.”
Poulton is a veteran among the growing number of car dealers who step from behind the sales desk at their dealerships to actively market their products and be the face of the dealership. In some cases, that face is a woman’s face. And that includes Poulton’s daughter, Tiffin Poulton-Simmons.
Poulton doesn’t read from a script when his ads are filmed, he says. What sets him apart is his ability to “create an ad instantaneously,” as he puts it, by starting to talk once the camera starts rolling.
“Sometimes it works. Sometimes we block it and say, ‘Let’s start again,’ but it’s credible,” he says. “I think people feel that because I’m not reading. I’m saying it. It’s coming right out of my heart and my head. That seems to be what works best for us.
“Other guys have been successful reading copy,” Poulton concedes, “so I guess it’s all about the individual. But I’ve actually built three different stores just telling people the way it really is and telling them what we have and how many we’ve got and when they’ll be gone.” He pauses. “We don’t play any games.”
Chuck Eddy, president of Bob & Chuck Eddy Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, Austintown, says he’s handled most of the dealership’s advertising over the years: in radio, print, broadcast television and cable.
Eddy began appearing in the dealership’s ads in the 1980s. The brand equity this built is huge, he says.
“You can’t put a dollar figure on it. The value is probably unlimited,” the son of the founder says. “When you have a four-generation family [business] that’s been in the same location selling the same product, it’s a unique environment. It makes a statement for the longevity of the family, the longevity of the business, the product that you’re selling, in our case Chrysler.”
While some car dealers haven’t put their names on their businesses, “we were always proud of our name, for everything we stood for and or reputation in the community,” Eddy says.
That brand value allowed the Eddy dealership to “sustain and grow” in the difficult environment that followed the bankruptcies of Chrysler and General Motors, “and do well even when it looked like the world was coming to an end,” Eddy says.
Although the role of commercial pitchman for the dealership has been handed off to his son, Chuck Eddy III, the elder Eddy says there isn’t a place he goes in town when someone doesn’t approach him to say they’ve seen him on television, even when he hasn’t been on the screen for two months.
“The residual effect is huge,” he remarks.
“You’re trying to brand yourself, also,” says John “Tell a Friend” Kufleitner, president of Kufleitner Auto Group, Salem, who has appeared in his dealerships’ ads more than 20 years. He has spent $15 million “marketing John Kufleitner,” as he put it.
“When you bring someone else in to do your marketing, if they move to a different market, you lose all the equity you have in that person that’s pitching,” he remarks.
When a dealer appears in his dealership’s ads, when customers walk through the door, “you become somebody they already know and trust,” he says. “As soon as they walk through that door, they feel as if they already know you.”
While Kufleitner understands the value of enlisting a professional pitchman and appreciates the quality of a professional’s talents, such individuals can and do move onto other products and other markets.
GM, Ford and Chrysler have brought in spokesmen, kept them on board three to five years “and as soon as you think they’ve got some good equity in it, they shift gears and move onto somebody else,” Kufleitner remarks. “Strategically I don’t like that. I don’t think it’s spending money the right way.”
When dealerships use professional ad agencies and spokesmen in their ads, customers occasionally go into those dealerships with the expectation of meeting or seeing those individuals in the showroom, says Donny Murphy of Donnell Ford in Boardman.
Murphy, who is part of the Core 6, a group of area businessmen who take on various community projects, has appeared in his dealership’s ads for 20 years.
“So basically when they come into the dealership they have a face that they know they can come to,” he says.
“There’s no better person to sell our products and experience than myself,” says Bobby Preston of Preston Auto Group. The auto group, based in Sharon, Pa., has dealerships in Boardman, Beaver County and New Castle, Pa., representing brands such as Ford, BMW, Volkswagen, Mazda, Buick, GMC, Cadillac Honda, Toyota and Hyundai.
Preston, who started working with the auto group in 2006, is at one or more of the dealerships every day meeting customers and feels he should be the one informing them about what’s on the lot. He is frequently joined in the auto group’s ads by Abby Deaton, who is affiliated with the agency that produces the ads. Deaton gives him someone to play off, he says.
Deaton’s presence reflects a change in advertising that has taken place in the traditionally male-dominated industry, a woman serving as the face of the dealership.
Columbiana Ford’s Poulton enlisted his daughter, Poulton-Simmons, in ads when he felt he wasn’t identifying with the buying public, he reports.
“Men like to think they make all the decisions, but honestly, over half the decisions are made by women when you’re sitting in the car dealership,” he says. Car dealers need to find a “middle ground” that satisfies both spouses. In addition, more women are purchasing a car (or truck) on their own, he notes.
The reaction to sharing the spotlight with his daughter is positive, Poulton says. As soon as she finished their first commercial, he acknowledged that he had been benched. “I thought she was good to begin with but she’s getting even better,” he says. “I’m proud of the fact that she’s taken over and I don’t have to do them anymore.”
One marketing executive not entirely sold on dealers appearing in their own ads is Ed Farris of Farris Marketing, Boardman. More dealers are appearing in TV spots than 20 or even 10 years ago, he agrees. Farris runs the agency’s CustomCarSpotsforLess.com, which works with dealerships to produce ads.
“I don’t necessarily advocate the dealer themselves or the owner or even the best salesperson being on television,” Farris say. “Just because they can sell the car at the dealership doesn’t mean they can necessarily get to the people they need to get to and relate to them well enough via television.”
He allows that Columbiana Ford’s Poulton is an exception to that rule “and certainly his attractive daughter who he’s brought to the screen seems to be doing a good job as well.”
Farris agrees that the increasing use of women to pitch products reflects what is happening inside the dealership as well, where saleswomen are growing in number. “There’s dealerships where I know the female salesperson is the leading salesperson,” he says. Many female customers are more apt to talk to a saleswoman than a male “who thinks they really shouldn’t even be in there.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: First published in the MidSeptember edition of The Business Journal.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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