Subaru Of Wichita’s Aaron Wirtz Uses Traditional Marketing At Used Car Lot

Aaron Writz, the man behind the viral Subaru of Wichita marketing answer to a union protest, spoke to DrivingSales News about his experience at SuperCarGuys. SuperCarGuys is a used vehicle store and operates in 2015 using what are often called traditional marketing methods.

“It’s almost like we’re sagging while everyone else is zigging,” explained Aaron Wirtz the marketing and media manager of Subaru of Wichita and SuperCarGuys. “When everyone’s saying spend all your money on digital and get away from traditional, at SuperCarGuys we’re having tremendous success with traditional advertising like TV and radio,” Wirtz said. Wirtz then grabbed a dealership grocery store magazine, showed it to the camera and said, “You’ve probably seen these at the grocery store. Instead of us buying space in a magazine, we have bought the whole magazine and kicked all the other dealerships out, so now this is just us.” Wirtz then showed a magazine photo that he’s in and added, “Oh who’s that guy?”

Wirtz, the self-proclaimed used car pitchman and experienced retail automotive marketer warned dealers about relying too much on what others are doing. Wirtz feels that if dealers worry about potentially troublesome terms like “best practices,” business innovation may suffer.

Wirtz explained, “I think when a dealership focuses too much on what established best practices are out here on the digital frontier, what they start to lose is that innate business leader mindset. Too much reliance on what do I think should work, what are other people saying should work for my business? It really leads to a sort of emotional dependence when the evidence is right in front of you in flesh and blood in real life.”

Wirtz mentioned the use of traditional marketing at his dealership, SuperCarGuys, and specifically explained his take on new verses old school marketing.

“I don’t like the distinctions of this is traditional marketing, this is digital marketing, I think none of those boundaries anymore make sense,” Wirtz noted.

Wirtz doesn’t feel that the traditional verses digital marketing labels make sense and his store; SuperCarGuys is succeeding using traditional methods and zero Facebook advertising. His store is doing well using methods that are supposed to be outdated, or so everyone says.

Speaking about the unusual nature of the marketing at his store Wirtz said, “Honestly its kind of flying in the face of what so may of these experts and gurus and stuff are saying.”

The comments from Wirtz, a man who has spoken multiple times on national television about his dealership’s marketing campaign seem to fly in the face of what dealers have been told for years: that traditional balloons and radio ads don’t work anymore. However, is this only because he’s using these tactics at a used dealership? What can franchise dealers learn from used dealerships?