Marketing

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. will launch its F-150 Lightning electric pickup April 26, CEO Jim Farley said Wednesday on Twitter. The automaker plans an event that day at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Michigan to celebrate the official start of production and first customer deliveries, which are expected soon afterward. “We will be

Dealership sales departments have traditionally feasted on bountiful digital marketing budgets and tactics while fixed ops departments had to nibble on the leftover scraps, usually in the form of “spray-and-pray” direct-mail campaigns. But that dynamic is changing. Fast. “We’re on the cusp of an advertising revolution in fixed ops,” says Alexi Venneri, co-founder and CEO

The time has come for a new DeLorean. DeLorean Motor Co. Inc. says it plans to unveil an electric model at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in August. The company last week released a teaser image of the concept, showing the taillight and left shoulder. The prototype is being revealed at the Awards Ramp three

PHOENIX — A steady cadence of new advertisements during key events made March the best month for GMC Hummer EV reservations since the SUV version was unveiled a year ago. “Awareness is a big thing, and I think that is on our side,” said Duncan Aldred, global vice president of Buick-GMC. GMC during the NBA

Drivers in Massachusetts waited in line for up to nine hours to fill their gas tanks for free, courtesy of dealer Ernie Boch Jr. Boch paid for more than 500 people to fuel up at a gas station in Norwood, Mass., to celebrate what he called “April Fuels Day.” He originally planned to give away

The New York International Auto Show returns this week after a two-year hiatus caused by coronavirus restrictions and concerns. But automakers are not back to their full level of pre-pandemic enthusiasm yet. A few manufacturers will show new electric vehicles, a hypercar and, yes, even good old-fashioned gasoline-powered models at the show, which opens to

Carmen Hinton was always doubtful about winning contests and prizes. So she was surprised when her name was announced last month at the NADA Show as the winner of the fifth annual Women Driving Auto Retail Video Contest. Hinton has been the service manager for the past six years at Carter Myers Automotive’s Valley Subaru

When electrification was on the horizon, Jeep knew exactly where to go with its message. The brand known for touting off-road excursions has stuck to an outdoorsy formula for its 4xe line of plug-in hybrids. The marketing transition could be seen in 2020 when Jeep started touting the quiet ride of the Wrangler 4xe months

Ohio State University running back TreVeyon Henderson is among the top football players in the country, but at Ricart Automotive Group he’s just one of the “interns.” Henderson, several of his teammates and other Ohio State athletes star in a series of advertisements that show them fetching coffee, pushing cars and being silly with group

DETROIT — Chevrolet on Thursday plans to debut two advertisements to relaunch the 2022 Bolt EV and EUV after a recall related to battery fires shut down production of the electric vehicles for about seven months. In its effort to move past the recall, which represented a black mark on General Motors’ EV ramp-up, the

Millions of people have driven their Toyota to a shopping mall, but few have actually driven right through the middle of one. Toyota Gazoo Racing organized a drift race through a dead mall for a video to promote the 2022 GR86. Three frigid days of filming at the Charlestowne Mall in St. Charles, Ill., left

A teenage driver’s twister trouble has resulted in a new Chevrolet Silverado. When Riley Leon, 16, drove through a powerful tornado on his way home from a job interview last month, his red Silverado flipped multiple times before landing upright on the road and he drove to safety, according to media reports. Leon was not

BrightDrop, General Motors‘ electric delivery van business, has changed the names of its two electric vans and its electric delivery cart. The BrightDrop EV600, the larger of the two vans, will be called the BrightDrop Zevo 600, and the EV410 will be dubbed the BrightDrop Zevo 400. “We chose Zevo because it contains ZEV (Zero

Porsche is looking to advance itself in the world of in-vehicle entertainment — at least at its in-house playground in Southern California. It’s now offering a virtual reality gaming experience — for passengers, not drivers — at its Porsche Experience Center in Los Angeles. The program, created in collaboration with the tech startup Holoride is

Buick appears to be rearranging its shields. The General Motors brand recently filed a trademark application that shows the three shields in its logo aligned horizontally instead of diagonally, and no longer overlapping. The shields also lose their diagonal stripe in favor of a curved line, and there’s no ring around the trio. (Jalopnik thinks

After declaring this month that they had no intention of doing so, Volkswagen executives are now rethinking their plans to keep production of the retro-styled electric minivan, the ID Buzz, anchored exclusively in Hanover, Germany, with North American production now a possibility. So what changed between March 10 and March 21? Consumer reaction — especially

General Motors is pulling back the curtain to show viewers the genesis and development of its first electric pickup, the GMC Hummer. A one-hour documentary called Revolution: GMC Hummer EV will premiere Sunday, March 27, on the History Channel, GMC and A+E Networks said last week. The film shows how the GM team launched the

Drivers of electric vehicles will be able to get more than a caffeine charge at some Starbucks locations this year. Volvo Car USA said Tuesday that it will be collaborating with Starbucks in a pilot project to add about 60 EV charging stations at 15 coffee shops beginning this summer. The locations will be scattered

SYLVANIA, Ohio — Joe Mehling minces no words in describing the effect of his desperate decision last year to turn to an old marketing standby and employ it in a completely unfamiliar way. “There’s no doubt about it,” explains the man whose been executive general manager of family-owned Dave White Chevrolet, just a mile south

Randy Dye considers himself a “traditional performance guy,” but he’s looking forward to seeing the creativity of the Dodge team as the rubber-burning brand delves into electric vehicles. Dodge plans to debut a battery-electric muscle car in 2024, a huge shift from its fuel-thirsty Hellcats. The brand will provide a glimpse into the future this

Google is launching a vehicle ads platform that will allow auto dealerships to place inventory ads within search results. The ad format will show a consumer searching for a particular model an ad for that vehicle with photos, price, mileage and location, Google said. The ads will display on top of a search results page

Land Rover is giving one customer an experience that’s much less terrestrial than its name suggests. The luxury SUV brand and Virgin Galactic are running a contest in which the grand prize is a flight into space. The Adventure of a Lifetime Sweepstakes is open to new and existing Land Rover owners who live in

Ford Motor Co.’s use of Model e as the name of its new electric-vehicle unit comes eight years after dashing Elon Musk’s hopes for a provocatively named lineup of cars from Tesla Inc. “A friend asked me at a party, ‘What are you going to name the third-generation car?’ Well, we have the S and

AMSTERDAM — Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has one word to describe the sound that’ll come from Dodge’s upcoming electric muscle car: “Shocking.” As the Hellcat era comes to a close, the Dodge team is working on creating a sound that will provide the backdrop for a new age of performance. Tavares, citing the company’s market

Reflecting on this year’s Super Bowl ads, I suspect I’m going to sound grumpy and old — except that I’m not complaining about the hip-hop halftime show and Eminem taking a knee. Full disclosure: I’m no fan of the NFL, having quit watching the league almost three decades ago. Aside from one game at Ford

Chevrolet gave fans of “The Sopranos” a partial answer to the mystery of what happened after the screen went black at the end of the HBO series 15 years ago: Tony’s kids grew up and bought electric vehicles. The Super Bowl commercial for the Silverado EV brought together Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who played daughter Meadow, and

Volvo-backed Polestar’s ad with potshots at rivals Tesla and Volkswagen topped the list of the most popular commercials during Super Bowl LVI, according to consumer search data firm Edo, despite being the lowest-rated automaker spot in the annual USA Today Ad Meter. Polestar’s 30-second ad performed roughly 23 times better than other commercials aired during

Subaru climbed two spots to first place in Consumer Reports‘ annual ranking of the most well-performing, safe and reliable automotive brands. Mazda, which was No. 1 in 2021, finished second this year. Six of the top 10 brands this year were Japanese; the highest-ranking U.S. brand was Buick, which was 11th.Jeep dropped three spots to

DETROIT — Philanthropist and former NBA star Jalen Rose is teaming with Jeep on a social media campaign called “Where I’m From.” The campaign combines product, personality and community. It begins with a 60-second spot in which Rose — the Detroit native and ESPN analyst who played basketball for the University of Michigan and several

Early in the year is an opportune time to assess your business — what’s working and what’s not — to help revenue grow. A major expense for dealerships is advertising and lead generation. In 2021, the U.S. reached $13.29 billion in automotive digital ad spend, according to eMarketer. Are you paying for channels and vendors