Smart Car Blog

See what Roger Penske has had to say about the future and direction of advertising and marketing for his newest baby boy brand, Smart!

Reading the call, I was interested in what Roger Penske had to say about the smart distribution.

Here is an excerpt:

The other thing would be advertising. We are not sure today the traditional TV, radio, etc., newspaper advertising is the way you want to go long-term because if you use smart as an indicator, we haven't run an ad yet, we haven't run a radio commercial, it's all been internet based, internet connection. So I think we are going to get the benefit as the dealers move more of their advertising into the internet those leads they are going to get then they are going to pass through the dealer in a particular area where you have the zipcodes and I think that's going to make a huge difference for us as we have scale in many of these markets. Also when you look at the smart customer, we've asked them on the road show, how do you want to be contacted and 62% said, we want you to contact us by e-mail. So this e-mail capture, the internet, CRM systems, I think that's just going to drive our SG&A down as we get more efficient. Because I can send an e-mail blast out and blast out on a service special and get overnight response that hasn't cost me a nickel so it's very efficient. So, I think that will be a big driver for us.