Incentive programs for test drives show how adept
car sales marketing has become
By William Ng
There aren’t many commercial market- ing environments that are more competitive than auto sales. Consum- ers are bombarded by TV spots and newspaper and magazine ads every day, all designed to get them into car dealerships, where the chanc- es of selling them vehicles rise exponentially. The odds get even better if salespeople can offer them incentives.
One of the more multi-
faceted traffic-builders was a
recent test drive and sweep-
stakes program for a Fort
Myers, FL-area Chevrolet
dealers association, known as
the Southern Chevy Dealers,
engineered by Los Angeles-
based Patriot Marketing
Group (PMG), a full-service
incentive, promotion, and
corporate branding provider.
The three-day consumer
promotion took place dur-
ing a Thursday-to-Saturday
period, during which each
person who test drove a
Chevy at a participating
dealer received a $50 Visa
reward card and was entered
into a sweepstakes for a Mar-
riott Premier weekend vaca-
tion package. The program
climaxed with a Saturday-
night, live-TV drawing for
the grand prize, televised on
NBC’s Fort Myers affiliate,
WBBH, during halftime of a
Miami Dolphins preseason
football broadcast.
