A Sad Story of How Refusal to Accept Reality and Weak Leadership Derailed Brilliant Marketing

Have you heard the big news, car shoppers? Car dealers don’t haggle anymore.

It’s true. Just ask them. And Edmunds.

At the time of this writing, the headline on the home page of Edmunds.com reads:

Get the post-haggle price. Save thousands without haggling. That’s Edmunds Price Promise®.

Of course, there’s some fine print about saving thousands. But the point is you can shop for cars at Edmunds.com and get final prices that are guaranteed and honored by local auto dealerships.

These dealerships pay Edmunds to advertise their inventory.

Edmunds recently launched a series of ads labeled “Absurdity of Haggling.” Watch one of the ads to get the gist of the campaign.

Basically, it illustrates how ridiculous it would be if you had to haggle over grocery prices like you do with car prices.

Personally, I think the ad is brilliant.

Kudos to Publicis Kaplan Thaler for creating the ads. They use real people in real life scenarios to perfectly convey the absurdity of haggling over car prices, positioning Edmunds as the more attractive alternative.

Many auto dealers disagreed.

These auto dealers said the ads depict outdated stereotypes. Some went so far as to threaten to pull their business from Edmunds.com.

Edmunds quickly pulled the ads. In a statement, Edmunds President Seth Berkowitz said:

Our digital videos illustrating the “Absurdity of Haggling” missed the mark. Some of our partners were deeply insulted, expressing that our attempt at humor reinforced outdated stereotypes. That was obviously never our intent. It has created a distraction from our business of helping to make car shopping easier. We are terminating the videos and getting back to working with our dealer partners to improve the car buying process for car shoppers around the country.

The whole situation nauseates me.

Let’s start with the whining auto dealers who apparently live in a Bizarro world where haggling doesn’t occur at auto dealerships.

Jeff Wyler, CEO of the Jeff Wyler Automotive Family in Cincinnati, was quoted in Ad Age as saying:

Negotiating prices on cars has always been expected by the consumer and having it referred to as “haggling” by a company that I am a customer of is insulting.

Just because people expect to negotiate over prices, that doesn’t mean they like it. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean you’re creating the best possible customer experience.

If people weren’t forced to either negotiate or overpay, do you think they would still go through the back-and-forth nonsense?

In fact, recent research found that 83 percent of car shoppers would prefer to avoid haggling over car prices. This study was commissioned by – wait for it – Edmunds!

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of “haggle” is “to talk or argue with someone, especially in order to agree on a price.”

According to Oxford Dictionaries, the definition of “haggle” is “to dispute or bargain persistently, especially over the cost of something.”

Is haggling really any different from negotiating? Is there anyone on the face of the earth who believes haggling is not occurring at auto dealerships?

How can you possibly be insulted when you admit that negotiation is expected at your dealerships? Because you feel there’s a clear distinction between negotiating and haggling?

Why aren’t more auto dealers whining about the haggling headline on the Edmunds.com home page? Because it didn’t get any media coverage?

Personally, I think the way the majority of auto dealers insult the intelligence of their customers, both in their advertising and at the dealerships, is far more egregious than these ads from Edmunds.

These dealers feel they can claim to be insulted only because they’re paying Edmunds to advertise their inventory, which gives them the right, in their mind, to control the Edmunds message.

It reminds me of my radio days when certain big-spending auto dealers and their agencies thought they owned the radio station and its employees. If something happened that ruffled the auto dealer’s or agency’s feathers, they would threaten to pull their advertising. I’ve seen colleagues disciplined and even fired as a result.

Bottom line? The ads from Edmunds nailed it. If you don’t like it, auto dealers, change the way you do business.

Those offended by the ads are most likely guilty as charged.

But the auto dealers aren’t the only ones who blew it. Edmunds showed the spine of a jelly fish by pulling the ads.

Edmunds.com positions itself as the place people can go to get upfront, haggle-free pricing. The “Absurdity of Haggling” ads perfectly reinforce this positioning.

Let’s not forget the target audience of these ads – car buyers, not auto dealers.

If auto dealers didn’t believe a portion of their customer base would prefer the Edmunds model – a model based on haggle-free car shopping – auto dealers wouldn’t be advertising on Edmunds in the first place.

If car buyers like the ads, the ads are good.

And if car buyers respond to the ads and buy cars through Edmunds, guess who profits? Those poor, insulted auto dealers.

Who cares if the auto dealers like the ads? It’s not like the ads are mean-spirited. They show the ridiculousness of haggling over price in a very lighthearted, relatable and funny way.

Yet petty auto dealers who are oblivious to what happens every day at the vast majority of dealerships went to the old “we’ll pull our advertising” threat.

Sadly, Edmunds caved, saying the ads “missed the mark.”

In doing so, they blew an opportunity to capitalize on a campaign that could have gone viral and drawn more attention to the conversation about improving the car buying process.

This conversation would be great for the target audience – car shoppers. But it’s probably naïve to think the target audience would receive top priority.

A more appropriate response from Edmunds might have been something like this:

I’m sorry you were insulted by our ads. They were meant to humorously portray a negative experience that the majority of our customers have endured for many years when shopping at auto dealerships. This is why they turned to Edmunds rather than repeating that experience.

As you know, today’s consumers demand transparency with any purchase, not just automotive. This is why the Edmunds model is becoming more popular. Many of our partner dealerships have joined our efforts to simplify the car buying process with more straightforward pricing and less negotiation/haggling.

I’m delighted to hear that the ads do not represent the way business is done at your dealership. I hope you’ll capitalize on the overwhelmingly positive consumer response to our ads and use this message to distinguish your dealerships from competitors who continue to feed this perception. They are the ones hurting auto dealerships, not Edmunds.

Edmunds, you blew it. Auto dealers, you blew it more.

And who loses? The consumer.