Monthly Archives: January 2022

CarBravo – General Motors Introduces its Used-Car Website

Shopping for a used-car is challenging these days. Not only is there a reported shortage of used-cars, but prices have been steadily rising at an estimated rate of 35%, making it hard for consumers to shop for a good used-car at a good price. In addition, there has been an increase in the number of ways – and websites – to shop for a used-car.

To access this rising demand, and to help resell its hundreds of thousands of used-cars, General Motors recently announced a new digital platform named ‘CarBravo’ that will be focused on selling its own used-car inventory.

GM officials stated that there are roughly 400,000 used vehicles available on an ongoing basis and its dealers sell 2.5 million used cars each year. Plus, GM and GM Financial have another 500,000 used cars each year to add to the mix.

According to industry analyst research, the U.S. used car market is more than two times the size of the new car sales. McKinsey estimates that U.S. consumers buy more than 39.4 million used cars each year, at a value of $1.4 billion. And used car sales are growing at a faster rate than new car sales, leading to an expanded market opportunity.

The biggest used car dealers currently are Carvana, CarMax, and Cars.com – all of which use their websites and locations to attract buyers and make it easy to both sell and purchase a used car. Plus, Ford has already entered into the consolidated used car market with its Ford Blue Advantage site.

CarBravo will offer online only purchase, dealership only purchase, and a combination of the two methods. However, one of GM’s biggest strength may be its reach – it has a network of 4,200 dealers across the nation, and those dealers have 400,000 used vehicles in inventory each year.

Where would you shop for a used car?

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:  

  1. Poll students: Who has sold a car? Who has bought a used car? What was their experience?
  2. List the places that used cars can be purchased. Who are the direct competitors to GM? Indirect competitors?
  3. Show video discussing the used car market: https://youtu.be/OMHhOdQRXZM
  4. Discuss the purpose of GM’s new business – CarBravo.
  5. Ask students to develop a SWOT analysis for General Motors, focusing on opportunities and threats. What are the main risks and issues?
  6. Divide students into teams. Have each team compare CarBravo with a competitor.
  7. What are the points of difference?

Source: Brown, L. S. (January 12, 2022). Car and Driver. GM to launch CarBravo, its own used car sales website.; LaReau, J. (January 11, 2022). Detroit Free Press. GM launches massive used car website CarBravo, hopes to take on Carvana.

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Consumer Electronics Show 2022 Tackles the Future of Tech

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is one of the largest and most influential showcases in the world for introducing innovative technology products from around the globe. Even during the ongoing pandemic, the Las Vegas-based show brought in nearly 45,000 attendees to the show floor. Plenty of people also ‘attended’ online with companies showing both concepts and real-life products. Attendees arrived from 119 countries to engage with emerging technologies and products across 11 different indoor and outdoor venues.

A diverse group of 2,300 companies (including 800 start-ups from 19 countries) showcased the latest innovations in the metaverse, NFTs, cryptocurrency, sustainability, wellness, transportation, entertainment, robotics, automotive, consumer goods, and more. And while the metaverse may be mostly just a concept today, CES illustrated how the building blocks it needs are already around, including blockchain, cloud, AR, VR, 5G, and more.

The show also provided looks at products in the marketplace as well as products-yet-to-be-launched in categories including:

  • Wellness and beauty
  • Smart devices for the home
  • Content creation
  • NFTs and crypto
  • Healthcare
  • Shopping and ecommerce
  • Artificial intelligence
  • eSports and sports tech
  • FinTech
  • Food tech
  • Pet tech
  • Workplaces
  • And of course – robots!

One of my personal favorites – BMW’s color-changing car!

What’s your favorite innovation from CES?

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:  

  1. Discuss the purpose of CES show and how innovation fits into it.
  2. Also discuss the use of trade shows and exhibits as part of a marketing plan.
  3. Show a summary video about COVID-19 products at CES from the Wall Street Journal – CES in photos: https://www.wsj.com/story/ces-2022-in-photos-a-strange-time-for-the-worlds-biggest-tech-show-a247b630?mod=djemfoe
  4. Additional summary videos can be found on YouTube, such as: https://youtu.be/GAzygeV_AsM
  5. View the CES Web site: https://www.ces.tech/
  6. Divide students into teams. Have each team select a product featured at CES.
  7. Instruct students to research the products online, and define a target market for the product?
  8. Which ones do they think will be winners in the marketplace? What products miss the mark?

Source:  C/NET; TechRadar; The Verge; Wall Street Journal; other news sources

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Top Ads Watched on YouTube in 2021

Advertising surrounds us. And while ads can be annoying, people still search online to view compelling ads. Starting a new year is a good time to examine the winning campaigns from last year and evaluate the elements that made them interesting enough that people searched for them on online.

The year 2021 was another challenging year and it had a lot of down moments, but on the whole we met the challenges and made the most of it. So, we’ve all earned a little time to relax, and no better way to do that than by viewing the top advertisements of the year.

The most compelling advertisements and videos are ones that have a strong story, humor, inspiration, and excitement. They build a bond with the audience, and inspire thoughts and action. It’s not easy to create a short video that engages audiences and inspires them to share the video and view it more than once, so it is worth examining the top advertising videos of 2021.

  1. Amazon – Amazon’s Big Game Commercial: Alexa’s Body
  2. T-Mobile – Tom Brady & Rob Gronkowski Big Game Ad
  3. HBO Max – Zack Snyder’s Justice League Trailer
  4. Netflix – The Mitchells vs. The Machines
  5. Apple – Privacy on iPhone
  6. Peloton – Beyonce’ Classes
  7. Uber Eats – Wayne’s World & Cardi B’s Shameless Manipulation
  8. Toyota – “The Pitch”
  9. State Farm Insurance – Drake from State JFarm
  10. Nintendo – Nintendo Switch OLED Model

Remember, these are the ads that people seek and choose to watch – a marketer’s dream! (Note: Ads are determined by an algorithm that factors in organic and paid views, watch time, and audience retention.)

What’s your top ad from 2021?

Group Activities and Discussion Questions:  

  1. Discuss the importance of branding and brand management. How do the videos fit into branding?
  2. Divide students into teams. Have each team analyze one of the following videos with respect to target market, key message, type of appeal, etc.
  3. Ads are available at: https://www.youtube.com/intl/en_us/ads/news-and-inspiration/ads-leaderboard/youtube-ads-leaderboard-2021-year-end-wrap-up/
  4. When teams have completed this, have each team show the video and discuss their analysis with the rest of the class.
  5. What are the commonalities between the videos? What are the differences?
  6. What should other companies do to replicate the success?

Source:  YouTube. Ads Leaderboard: 2021 year-end-wrap-up.

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