Wow, the folks at CED Magazine must have really liked this article. Not only was it a page and a half feature article, it got a nice mention from Editor editor Kim Phelan as well a nice tease in the index and on the cover.

“WINNING THE ZERO MOMENT OF TRUTH (April 2012 CED Magazine, by Ed Steenman)

It used to be simple. A customer would walk into your showroom or dealership looking to buy. They’d call you on the phone. Or, more recently, email you. But all of these instances of ‘first contact’ had one thing in common; they were two-way in that you actually got to participate in the conversation. But not today.

Allow me to set the stage. I travel a lot and it used to be a hassle to find a decent Hotel/Motel ‘on the fly’. No more. Now, I simply pull out my smart phone and make a decision based on the customer reviews, price and location. Did the place I decide to stay at (or more importantly did NOT choose) even get to participate in this decision? No, not in a traditional sense anyway.

Google, the fine folks most responsible for this new behavior, have coined a name for it. They call it ZERO MOMENT OF TRUTH – the ZERO referring to the fact that this new form on contact takes place BEFORE traditional FIRST contact. And in fact, they’ve published a 75 page book where they share their views of this new paradigm. Read CED/Steenman article here.”

Euro Moto 2012
March 3-4
Lynnwood Convention Center
Lynnwood, WA

Seattle Advertising Agency | Seattle Digital Strategies | Seattle Television Advertising | Seattle Internet Advertising | Seattle Media Buying | Seattle Automotive Advertising | Social Media Speaker

It’s 2012 now and in many ways a new beginning. And we’re proud to welcome BACK Honda of Fife as our client and look forward to helping them to make this year a banner one for sales of new and used vehicles. Thanks for your continued faith in us, and our continuing partnership.

It’s even sweeter the second time around.

Seattle Advertising Agency | Seattle Digital Strategies | Seattle Television Advertising | Seattle Internet Advertising | Seattle Media Buying | Seattle Automotive Advertising | Social Media Speaker

Every once in a while you just gotta stop and have some fun, right? Such was the case at the opening of this year’s Portland International Auto Show. Notice the silly grin on my face. Perhaps I’m smiling cause it was just so darn fun to be around all the cars and excitement. Maybe it was just the joy of working on such a prestigious client. Whatever it was, it was infectious – with smiles everywhere.

Do you post videos on the web for your business or dealership? If so, new rules could cost you.

Videos your business posts on You Tube, Facebook and other unpaid social media and digital platforms could soon face an increased level of scrutiny and monitoring from your brand.

At least one major manufacturer has announced they intend to begin actively monitoring dealership videos posted on the internet for things like brand standards, logo usage, and possibly MAAP and other standard compliance issues such as the scissors rule. Failure to meet existing standards in these new areas could well begin to result in costly “strikes” to your dealership.

First off, you might be wondering how or why a manufacturer can even get involved in monitoring advertising on a free platform like YouTube. After all, as it stands today for most brands today, compliance is geared to insure that paid advertising in places like newspaper, direct mail, radio or television are required to comply with a manufacturer’s brand standards and guidelines. Traditionally, these requirements have NOT been of concerns on ‘free’ platforms like You Tube, Facebook (outside of a paid Facebook ad) or blog sites. But information we’ve been recently provided indicates this is about to change for some. Compliance personnel, share their rationale: “while a social media platform by itself is a ‘free’ vehicle, the act of linking it to a dealership’s website in essence rolls this free asset into a ‘paid’ asset, and therefore makes these platforms subject to the same compliance rules as ‘paid’ advertising”.

Whether you agree with this rationale or not, we recommend every dealership or business takes some time to review the status of their social media assets.

Some of the questions you should be asking or researching are:

(1) What social media platforms are linked in any way to my dealership website (or for that matter any paid advertising you control)?
(2) What videos or other produced elements reside on those social media sites (Ie: YouTube)?
(3) Are the assets current? For example, do you have videos ‘up’ that contain out-dated offers or other content that is out of date?
(4) Are they brand correct? For example, do they contain the proper use of your brand’s logo according to published individual dealer marketing guidelines, one brand to a video, etc? If you are in doubt on this point, and control the You Tube channel the content appears on, you can go in and change the viewership privileges from public to private. After that, you can submit the content for approval using your appropriate co-op preapproval compliance network.

Beyond your immediate website, we are also recommending for you to do a search on You Tube or other video share sites to assess what other video or content bearing your dealership’s name exists ‘out there’ and attempt to take appropriate actions as outlined above.

What about content referencing your dealership you suspect violates brand standards but that you didn’t post or don’t have no control over? While we have been told there will be some considerations here, at least one brand has indicated their likely policy will be to ‘strike’ offending material, then leave the burden of proof to the dealership to show they don’t or can’t control that content.

Painful as it may be, NOW is the time to get a handle on the content that your dealership employees, vendors and even customers have posted on the web. Because it could well cost you if you don’t.

Seattle Advertising Agency | Seattle Digital Strategies | Seattle Television Advertising | Seattle Internet Advertising | Seattle Media Buying | Seattle Automotive Advertising | Social Media Speaker

Here is one of the promotional segments we put together for the Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett Wedding Expos this season. We’re proud to have partnered with Buckles Productions for nearly twenty years working on their events in the Puget Sound area, Honolulu Hawaii, and Portland Oregon.

The Portland International Auto Show has retained Steenman to handle all digital and traditional advertising for their 2012 show. This major auto show features hundreds of new domestic and import cars, trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles. Virtually every foreign and domestic car and truck line is represented. Concept cars and proto types are also on display. Also included in the show are numerous exhibitors with many auto related products.

The Portland International Auto Show will be held at the Oregon Convention Center January 26-29, 2012.

Seattle Advertising Agency | Seattle Digital Strategies | Seattle Television Advertising | Seattle Internet Advertising | Seattle Media Buying | Seattle Automotive Advertising | Social Media Speaker

“What a great time meeting dealers and allied industry personal at the AED Lawson Executive Summit in Chicago! Fantastic event.

In the roundtables afterwards, one area that seemed to generate questions was the correct or recommended use of social media for the construction segment. This is even more relevant with the continued convergence of social media, reputation management and search because even if you don’t do social media for social media’s sake, what you do in the social media space is beginning to affect other areas of the internet, including the ranking your company receives in search returns, and customers reviews and ratings continuing to impact how (or if) prospectives customer choose to do business with your company.

In this article, we’re going to focus on five things your business needs to know to best engage your audiences or communities in the rapidly” read more here