Incentive - September 2008 - (Page 47) By Peter Hildebrandt or automakers, it’s difficult to escape the major news story of the day: rising fuel prices. As the cost of gas moved over $4.00 per gallon during the summer, design features and add-ons took a backseat. According to a recent marketing study of in-market new-car shoppers, published by Kelley Blue Book, high gas prices are responsible for shoppers looking for more fuel-efficient models. So, buyers are seeing more incentives on the larger vehicles. With the sales and even the use of large, heavy, low-mileage cars and SUVs dropping throughout the country, the biggest, baddest of them all, Hummer, is having some major image issues. One solution is an experiential incentive that reminds car buyers what the slightly civilianized military vehicles are really for. That’s the technique used by Columbiana Hummer, in the Columbia, S.C. area, which sends potential buyers F invitations to dinners and boat rides on nearby Lake Murray’s Southern Patriot, usually in the spring or summer. At Christmas they work with the U.S. Marine Corps in its Toys for Tots program right at their Hummer showroom. The Hummer Happening features big field events in which Hummer owners, friends and prospective buyers are invited out to a track in the country where they can test their vehicles. The Hummers can be driven through creeks, rivers and mud in conditions the vehicle was made for. The dealership has held the event in conjunction with the Marine Corps’ “Mud Run” event held at Fort Jackson, in Columbia, S.C. “We try to do something like the Hummer Happening three times a year,” says Tim Dorton, general sales manager. “Other times we go out to the Marine Corps base and have a barbecue event to build spirit, camaraderie and let people feel like they’re part of the ‘Hummer family.’ ” “We also have a track right here at our dealership, built to the specifications of Hummer, which actually puts the vehicle to its limits, on a short-term, local basis, that is. Giant humps push the suspension to the max, things an ordinary vehicle simply could not do.” Keep cash off the hood Still, most cars don’t have such large obstacles to overcome. Dick Swary is an account supervisor with LaBov & Beyond, a Ft. Wayne, Ind.–based incentive marketing firm specializing in the automotive industry as well as other engine-driven industries, such as heavyduty trucks and RVs. According to Swary, whenever there is a burning topical issue directly related to vehicles, such as fuel cost, if a vehicle manufacturer can find a way to appear to be the one helping a consumer to overcome that problem, they’ve then taken a negative situation and turned it into a positive incentivemag.com | September 2008 | Incentive | 47 http://incentivemag.com
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