Odd dealer marketing effort in Toronto

Saw an item that a Porsche dealer in Toronto went to some affluent neighborhoods with a camera and a white 991. The parked the car in front of various homes, snapped a picture and then immediately e-mailed it to the homeowner with an invite to come out for a test drive. Think that's hitting a little too close to home--pun intended--for my preference.

I'd call it clever marketing - "Picture a Porsche in your driveway"

Cookies and search engines do it to you all the time.

This one just takes a little more effort on the part of the company.

I haven't received more promotional material from Porsche. They must not buy vehicle registration info from the DMV or work with dealers to see who brought their car in for service (though I seldom used a dealer, still they have a record).

I always assume "they" know all about me and I can discard email or print ads with ease. It doesn't bother me at all that they target me and sometimes I even buy from targeted ads.

Yeah, I hear of all these great things some board members get via marketing materials, and I get nothing. Also, to this day, a dealer still sends me service reminders for my '98 Boxster, which I haven't had since 2002. I guess, some are better than others when it comes working with customers/clients.

... how did you get my name, address and e-mail?
Happy Boxstering,
Pedro

Pedro Bonilla
1998 Boxster 986 - 311,000+ miles: [www.PedrosGarage.com]
PCA National Club Racing Scrutineer - PCA National HPDE Instructor - PCA Technical Committee (Boxster/Cayman)

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Racecar spelled backwards is Racecar

"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" ... Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney in "LeMans"

"If you wait, all that happens is that you get older"... Mario Andretti

"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose" ... Ayrton Senna

Quote
Pedro (Weston, FL)
... how did you get my name, address and e-mail?
Happy Boxstering,
Pedro

Address and name would be easy. Not sure how they'd get the the e-mail address.

Here's the article. They went to an affluent neighbourhood, took the pictures with the car appearing to be in the driveway and sent a personalized flyer to each home. It wasn't e-mailed. If you click on the red X at the top left of the article, it shows a sample photo.

[www.theglobeandmail.com]

and from the article, it produced positive results.

Imagine - you like the 'look' of it in your driveway, then visit the dealership and ... drive it. That's a winning one-two combination.

The article didn't mention email and I don't think it was used. They took the pic at an address, recorded the address, and snail-mailed the flyer to that address. Pretty easy to do.

Personally, I wouldn't care to get such a flyer. Am willing to bet they got a few complaints from pinheads about "invasion of privacy" (which it's not).

Oh, and read the second of the two comments following the article. He makes a good point, although it thankfully doesn't apply to post-2008 cars..

Driving a new-to-me '09S in Aqua Blue Metallic. It does .5 past light speed. I made the Kessel run in less than 12-parsecs.
Motto: If you have your top up, that storm outside had better have a name!
Motto 2: Having the top up on a convertible is an oxymoron. Don't be a (oxy)moron.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2012 10:36AM by KevinR-MedinaOhio. (view changes)