Every Tuesday, Newport Beach Mercedes-Benz dealer Fletcher Jones Motorcars Inc. executives meet in their version of a war room to talk marketing tactics amid the ongoing auto industry slump.
“We decide what we’re going to do this week with the current and future campaigns,” said Curt Lyon, creative director at Newport Beach-based Lyon Studios, which produces Fletcher’s ubiquitous cable TV commercials.
Lyon and Fletcher executives evaluate how the dealership’s commercials are going and what needs to be tweaked.
“If a campaign that week isn’t working because of a change in people’s attitudes, we change it on the fly,” Lyon said. “It’s a week-by-week advertising process.”
Fletcher has held the weekly meetings for years.
Perhaps what’s more notable is that the dealership hasn’t pulled back on advertising in what is the worst auto downturn in recent memory.
“A lot of other auto dealers have reduced their marketing budgets dramatically or gone completely off the air,” Lyon said. “We’ve been doing these meeting for 15 years and they help in figuring out what we need to do to react to the marketplace.”
Fletcher, the largest dealer in Orange County and No. 2 in the nation after El Monte’s Longo Toyota, has felt the downturn.
Last year, Fletcher sold 5,656 new vehicles, down 12% from a year earlier. The company has yearly sales of about $600 million from auto sales and service.
Change in Tone
The tone of Fletcher’s ads has changed in the past year. Instead of just Mercedes-Benzes on a beach, the spots now focus on reliability, clean technology or a Mercedes as an investment.
“You can’t just depend on one campaign to strike a chord,” Lyon said. “You have to be adaptable and be able to change your message to fit with customers’ attitudes.”
When gas prices spiked last summer, one commercial had Chief Executive Fletcher “Ted” Jones Jr. talking about not sacrificing safety for fuel economy.
“The idea came out of my mother-in-law having an accident in her hybrid,” Lyon said. “We thought it was very topical (to talk) about the safety of these subcompact hybrids.”
Fletcher recently ran commercials touting its clean diesel models, which hit showrooms last year.
The 2009 diesel models use Daimler AG’s BlueTec technology, which converts nitrogen oxide emissions into harmless nitrogen and water vapor.
“We’ve already pulled the BlueTec commercials because with gas low and the cars selling very well, we didn’t see the need to keep promoting them,” Lyon said.
The latest push: a bid to boost sales by appealing to auto buyers across the region.
The dealership has aired a new 30-second spot and has two radio commercials in the works talking about the distance people drive to buy a Mercedes from Fletcher.
“We are intent on growing our market share inside and outside Orange County,” said Garth Blumenthal, Fletcher’s general manager.
The spots also address the credit crunch, talking up Fletcher’s $250 million credit line to finance purchases.
In the commercials, Jones,the face of Fletcher Jones Motorcars since he took over the dealership from his father 17 years ago,speaks plainly about the mix of people who have bought a Mercedes from him.
“We have tried very hard to become a household name so when people think Mercedes-Benz, they think Fletcher Jones,” Blumenthal said.
Big Spender
The dealership uses a mix of newspaper, radio, cable and Internet advertising.
Neither Blumenthal or Lyon would disclose how much Fletcher spends on advertising.
The dealership is the one of the largest advertisers on local cable systems in the county, according to a source familiar with Fletcher.
It’s getting a lot more for its money these days.
With lower demand for advertising, the cost for space in newspapers and on cable and radio has gone down dramatically, according to Blumenthal.
“With the way the newspapers and TV are hurting, we’re able to secure double the advertising for the same amount or even reduce our dollar commitment and get the same amount of advertising that we had a year ago,” Blumenthal said.
