Edmunds Tells DrivingSales News About Their “Haggling” Ad
In a report from last week, we shared a video news story about a controversial Edmunds commercial. In the ad, a grocery clerk pretended to “haggle” with customers over the price of food items. The clerk was meant to be mimicking the price negotiation, which can occur at retail automotive dealerships. Fast forward one week and the commercial is no longer running.
Reports indicate the ad was pulled after dealerships complained. Dealerships do, after all buy listing services from Edmunds. Seth Berkowitz, President of Edmunds told the Automotive News, “Some of our partners were deeply insulted, expressing that our attempt at humor reinforced outdated stereotypes. That was obviously never our intent.” DrivingSales News reached out to Edmunds for comment. These are our questions, with their answers:
1) This video ad was targeting the consumer but did offend some of your dealer customers, have you changed any internal approval processes as a result?
“At Edmunds, we are always looking for ways to improve our processes. Every time we try something new, we learn ways to do it better next time. This situation is no different.”
2) Was this ad seen by dealers before going live?  Do you utilize a dealer advisory board (DAB) for reasons such as this?
“We do indeed have a dealer advisory board and will continue to work with them to innovate for a better car-shopping experience.”
3) Have you received positive or negative feedback from dealers about this ad?
“Both, and we have received a lot of dealer inquiries about the ad that were neutral.”
4) What message does Edmunds want this particular ad to communicate?
“We know that many shoppers still worry about those stereotypes. Our goal was to show that car-shopping doesn’t have to be that way. Many dealers are embracing change. Through Price Promise, shoppers can get upfront prices to save themselves and the dealers time so that everyone wins. Our goal was to promote Edmunds and our network of dealers who are signed up to offer a haggle-free experience. We missed the mark because some of our dealer partners were offended, and that was not our intention.”
What are your thoughts on this issue? Did you like the ad or dislike it? Do you agree with the decision to pull it? Is “haggling” part of the retail automotive experience, or a fading old school relic? What do you think of our questions and the responses from Edmunds?
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Edmunds has a profound misunderstanding of this “haggling” situation. I used to work in a retail environment where some of our $3000 non-negotiable items had as much total markup ($1000 or so) as many dealers average on new $20,000 cars! So yes, most businesses don’t require haggling for a customer get “the deal” which is often still a good seller’s margin. What exactly is the point? We certainly do not need to pay Edmunds or Truecar to give away our gross profit to our customers, we can do that the old fashioned way IF NEEDED. Edmunds and Truecar simply redistribute customers to the lowest bidder and create another middleman to soak up margin.