Edmunds.com's YouTube ad campaign that spoofed price haggling at dealerships lasted just two days.
The third-party vehicle shopping site, which dealers pay to find sales leads, pulled the videos on Thursday, Oct. 23, after an outcry from some dealers who found the ads offensive.
'Our digital videos illustrating the 'Absurdity of Haggling' missed the mark,' Edmunds President Seth Berkowitz said in a statement.
On the surface, the episode was about four ads whose humor was distasteful to some dealers. But it also underlines tension between dealers and the third-party sites, such as Edmunds, AutoTrader. com, TrueCar and Cars.com.
Dealers pay third parties to post inventory and advertising to find sales prospects. Some dealers say they are paying to boost the third parties' brands at their own expense.
Edmunds.com's videos were titled 'Haggling is absurd!' They are no longer on YouTube but still were available on adage.com, the website of Advertising Age, a sibling publication of Automotive News.
'Some of our partners were deeply insulted, expressing that our attempt at humor reinforced outdated stereotypes,' Berkowtiz said. 'That was obviously never our intent.'
Berkowitz added that the ads had created a distraction at the company.
'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,' he wrote.
In the videos, a grocery checkout clerk tries to gouge shoppers on items such as bread and squash and haggle with them when they refuse to pay the asking price. Edmunds.com says in the videos that the scenes were recorded with four hidden cameras.
The clerk uses a couple of old sales ploys, such as calling the manager on a price and telling the shoppers that the price is high because the products are flying off the shelf. He starts at $9 for a quart of milk with one shopper. The scenes ended with the punch line: 'You wouldn't haggle for your groceries, so why do it when buying a car?'
Kevin Frye, e-commerce director for the Jeff Wyler Automotive Family in Cincinnati, led discussion on his Facebook page criticizing the campaign.
He said the four videos perpetuate stereotypes of dealers as bargainers trying to take advantage of shoppers with outrageous mark-ups.
Frye said Thursday, Oct. 23, that the Wyler dealership group had canceled its Edmunds.com subscriptions.
Edmunds.com has been marketing a no-haggle approach to shopping on its site for more than a year through a program called Price Promise.
Through it, an Edmunds shopper can get a guaranteed price from an Edmunds-participating dealer on a specific new vehicle. The service also provides prices of similar vehicles in the area.
Edmunds believes so strongly in the no-haggle approach that it wants all of its 10,000 participating dealers to offer Price Promise during the coming months. About 8,000 already are on board with the program, which was rolled out in spring 2013.
Edmunds initially defended the ads as simply spoofs intended to show that customers dislike haggling.
Michelle Denogean, chief marketing officer for Edmunds, said Wednesday, Oct. 22, that the videos portray a buying experience so far from the way modern dealerships operate that company executives were surprised that some dealerships were offended.
Denogean said the videos were intended to illustrate in an exaggerated, lighthearted way that shoppers don't like to haggle on prices. Shoppers want a fair and transparent buying experience that Edmunds can help facilitate, she added.
The creative work was done by Publicis Kaplan Thaler in New York City. 'The stereotypes are very outdated,' Denogean said.
Other dealers expressed their irritation with the campaign on social media and at autonews.com.
Colonial Automotive Group in Acton, Mass., found the videos offensive but not enough so to cancel the Edmunds.com subscriptions it has at eight of the group's 14 stores, said Daniel Fontaine, group e-commerce director.
'It's disheartening to have a vendor like that telling you that they want to be your strategic partner, then doing this,' Fontaine said.
AutoNation Inc. CEO Mike Jackson said earlier this year that the nation's largest dealership group planned to reduce its reliance on third-party sites. Instead, he plans to build AutoNation's website and brand.
Dave Zuchowski, CEO of Hyundai Motor America, said, 'There's no reason in the world to have any third party stand between you and your customer.' He spoke two weeks ago at Automotive News' Best Dealerships To Work For event.
On the other hand, this month, CarMax went back to posting inventory on AutoTrader and Cars.com after 16 months away. The giant used-car retailer saw same-store vehicle sales stagnate in its most recent quarter, despite a robust used-car market.
You can reach David Barkholz at dbarkholz@crain.com. -- Follow David on and
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