Marketing

After more than a century of being humble, SAE International is starting to brag a bit by launching a “Meet SAE” ad campaign. SAE hopes the campaign will help increase membership and participation in events and on technical committees. The target market for these ads includes people working on advanced mobility technologies such as electrification

Genesis quintupled U.S. sales in October compared with last year and has filled a trophy case with industry awards over the past five years. But now it needs a big push to raise brand awareness, Claudia Marquez, COO for North America, told Automotive News. “Growth year-over-year has been outstanding,” said Marquez, just six weeks into

DETROIT — General Motors on Friday said customers who buy vehicles that are built without heated or ventilated seats because of parts shortages can have the features added later, potentially as soon as the middle of next year. GM provided the update a week after informing dealerships that it had to eliminate the features temporarily

At Dodge, it’s time to make the donuts. The “Brotherhood of Muscle” brand said it’s seeking an enthusiast “who embodies the spirit of the founding Dodge brothers” to serve as an ambassador. The job comes with a Hellcat to drive, $150,000 salary, a wardrobe and business cards with the title “chief donut maker.” (To be

The 996-generation 911 that Porsche turned into a swan was certainly no ugly duckling. The German luxury brand is celebrating 20 years in China by taking the car, with an inflatable head and wings, on a tour of art galleries and museums across the country. The idea to turn a 911 into a swan came

DETROIT — Stellantis is dishing out rewards to drivers through a smartphone app that also serves as an exploratory tool into new revenue streams. The Stellantis Miles app is incentivizing travel of all kinds, whether driving, using ride-sharing services, biking or just taking a jog. The accrued miles can be redeemed at Stellantis dealerships for

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ appearance at a Honda dealership in Brandon, Fla., to sign legislation prohibiting COVID-19 vaccine mandates was widely seen as a nod to a euphemistic insult of President Joe Biden. But the head of the dealership group that owns Brandon Honda says he made “zero connection” in advance of the Republican governor’s

Mazda has a new “pride point” in the U.S. with its Huntsville, Ala., plant, which will start producing the made- for-America CX-50 crossover in January, Mazda North America CEO Jeff Guyton told Automotive News. After ending U.S. manufacturing nearly a decade ago as part of Mazda’s breakup with Ford Motor Co., the Japanese automaker hopes

The Dodge brand’s path to its electric future is trying to appeal honestly and accurately with two distinct camps: consumers who are excited about the brand’s EV push and naysayers who fear the muscle-car brand is abandoning its identity. Tim Kuniskis, the brand’s CEO, is using digital marketing to appeal to both groups. Dodge’s two-year

Even Barbie is going electric. Mattel used a prime press conference slot at the Los Angeles Auto Show to unveil a sparkly two-seat convertible built on the chassis of a Fiat 500e. The company will be selling a toy version of the car at Walmart for $30. It will likely be more profitable than the

General Motors’ GMC brand announced a three-year partnership with the Marcus Graham Project to foster diverse leadership in advertising, media and marketing, and marks the organization’s first contractual, multi-year commitment with a brand. The financial commitment from GMC is earmarked to support the nonprofit’s annual iCR8 Boot Camp program, which trains aspiring marketers from non-traditional backgrounds.

Suburban Detroit’s experimentation with an outdoor automotive festival showed plenty of promise for next year and beyond, but it also served as a reminder why auto shows traditionally have been held in climate-controlled convention halls. Bad weather forced organizers to cancel one of two media and industry days at Motor Bella, the enthusiast-geared car event

DETROIT — Most of the show at the new Motor Bella event in suburban Detroit took place off the stage for its debut Tuesday. The event at M1 Concourse drew hundreds of industry representatives and media members in Pontiac, Mich., as it marked the return of a major auto show to metro Detroit and offered

A while back, I came across a blog post on digital fatigue from dealership marketing company Outsell. The company noted that a proliferation of emails has made us more willing to ignore some of them. The amount of email content consumers are getting had trended upward for a few years, and then the pandemic exacerbated

In a future city envisioned by Hyundai Motor Co., streets are devoid of congestion and pedestrians. Cars travel freely down empty roads. Occasionally, a rival vehicle will sneak up from behind and cause a crash. No biggie. The driver springs from the wreckage and ambles over to an autonomous food truck and orders plates of

The Bronco is back, and so is John Bronco, a fictitious Ford Motor Co. pitchman who was the subject of a mockumentary last year. In John Bronco Rides Again, streaming on Hulu, the title character, played by Walton Goggins, learns that Ford created a new Bronco more than 20 years after he mysteriously vanished. “I

DETROIT — An auto show is coming to suburban Detroit this week. You can expect it to be more like an amusement park for cars than the familiar indoor format that has defined Detroit’s primary auto show for decades. The new event, called Motor Bella and scheduled for Sept. 21-26, is not a replacement of

Here’s an example of dealership marketing based on first-party customer data — the data the dealership keeps about its own customers. A Ford shopper bought an F-150 pickup from Dealership A and is now searching for lease deals on a new truck. But Dealership A’s advertising provider doesn’t have visibility into the store’s sales history,

BMW showed a concept car made almost entirely from recyclable materials at the Munich auto show last week. The i Vision Circular concept previews “a sustainable car of the future,” CEO Oliver Zipse said. But the future, in this case, is still a long way off — around 2040, BMW said. The concept’s design is

CarGurus, an Internet automotive retailing platform, has signed on to sponsor a revival of the Groucho Marx game show “You Bet Your Life” to be hosted by car-crazy comedian Jay Leno. Leno will start each episode of the nationally syndicated show, which premieres this week, by revealing the “CarGurus secret word of the day.” Viewers

Before Internet browser cookies, and their eventual demise, became something he needed to know about, Bobby Sight generally didn’t consider using his dealership’s customer data as a source for advertising. Sight, vice president of Rob Sight Ford in Kansas City, Mo., primarily used that data to get in touch with customers — for sales follow-up

While Ford Motor Co. used footwear to help design a truck, Ram went in the opposite direction. Ram has partnered with clothing company Wolverine to create a line of work boots with designs inspired by its pickups. The collection is modeled after Ram’s Tradesman, Rebel and Limited trim levels. “We picked elements of each of

Police in Richmond, Va., were on the hunt last week for a tire slasher who seems to harbor a very specific automotive grudge. More than a dozen Subarus parked on the streets of a historic neighborhood had their tires cut overnight. Some vehicles had two tires sliced open, while on others all four were flat.

Audi’s top executive said he believes the premium brand can nearly double its global sales volume to 3 million vehicles and maintain profit margins between 9 and 11 percent by 2030, even as it phases out internal combustion powertrains in favor of an all battery-electric lineup. Speaking to reporters via videoconference from headquarters in Ingolstadt,