Bringing Out that Showroom Shine - Providing Strategic Storytelling Services to Cox Automotive Retail Brands
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Bringing Out that Showroom Shine Providing Strategic Storytelling Services to Cox Automotive Retail Brands
There was a time when anyone with a toolbox and a little elbow grease could keep a car on the road. Today, vehicle systems are so complex that some cars contain more onboard computer code than a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Companies that were once in the car business now find themselves in the technology business. For Cox Automotive, it’s an opportunity to lead rather than follow, to author the stories of tomorrow rather than patiently wait for the next day’s headlines. At FARM, we were helping clients with storytelling long before the term was spoken around conference rooms as much as campfires. The “fun aunt” of Thought Leadership, it’s our way of creating content that people find engaging, through a voice that people respect. It’s not limited solely to public relations or strategic planning or creative execution, but the cogent and thoughtful combination of the three to transform insights into influence. For the last six years, we’ve worked as an extension of the Cox Automotive vision, leveraging our B2B and B2C expertise to bring a fresh perspective to your marketing and communications without abandoning the principles that guide your way of doing business. We know the only way to continue earning your trust is through understanding, analysis, and ongoing optimization. So, together, we’re not wasting time chasing the big idea but investing in the right ones to move your business forward. We thank you for the opportunity to cultivate a deeper partnership with Cox Automotive and enthusiastically look forward to our next steps. Sincerely, Bryan LeFauve CEO
Executive Summary Why choose FARM as your Strategic Storytelling partner? Because we are uniquely positioned to connect the dots from your business goals through marketing execution for every brand and key campaign. Our role would focus on marketing strategy, business insights, and content marketing execution. We would work in concert with the Cox PR team and another traditional PR firm that is focused on press release writing, pitching, coverage tracking, and media relations and management. Ultimately, our value as a full-service marketing partner to Cox is that we bring more to the table than the “basics” of PR. We glean insights to extract unique story angles that position Cox as the true market leader. Packaging the full narrative—including tapping into research, market data, and creative support—to help frame and tell a story through integrated marketing communications is our specialty. It is what we have helped Cox do successfully in the past, earning accolades from the PR and marketing team leaders all along the way. Why are we counseling you to hire FARM along with another agency partner? Because it is the best way for Cox to maximize our value and your overall investment. We believe that if you combine the muscle of FARM with another equally talented traditional PR firm, it will yield the marketing horsepower you need. Also, while we do have seasoned PR pros on our team, we are not staffed to execute your PR work with the sharpness it deserves. However, we can and will work alongside your team to ensure it’s executed flawlessly and honors your vision and established strategy. We expect this pitch approach and transparency will make us rise above our competitors. More importantly, we hope this speaks volumes about who we are as an agency. Our long-standing partnership with Cox is one we treat with the utmost respect and we promise to bring integrity, measured objectivity, and fresh perspective to all that we do for you.
Storytelling
The storytelling discipline at FARM includes content marketing, public relations, video Our value as a full-service agency partner to
strategy, and traditional and digital media focus areas. Cox Automotive is in bringing more than the “basics”
of PR. We’re able to glean insights to extract unique
Storytelling allows us to employ contextually relevant messaging across a variety of channels. story angles that position Cox as the true market
More than using the right message and vehicle, we ensure the story achieves its specific leader. Packaging the full story—including tapping
purpose whether influencing your audience, increasing exposure and awareness, providing into research, market data, and creative support—
further education, or promoting a more favorable opinion of your brand. to frame a press release is our specialty. It’s what
we’ve helped the Cox team do successfully in the
Regardless of the story we want to tell, our process is the same: past, earning great feedback from the team, timely
approvals from Legal, and ultimately, ensuring we
secured favorable media coverage.
Insight Channel Delivery
Audience Content
Strategic Planning
Having a plan is truly the only way you can move your business forward with confidence. Whether harvesting insights from market research or translating your
data into actionable business intelligence, we use knowledge and predictive analytics to create a support system that helps you make informed decisions
across your entire company—measuring impact so you can adapt to the changing business environment with speed, agility, and accuracy.
In the provided RFP summary document, there was an ask for a recommended B2B and B2C strategy and communication plan addressing a myriad of
categories. At this time, we cannot produce a plan as we are in a vacuum from an insights and business planning standpoint. However, we can share the
steps of our planning process as well as some of the content we would collect to construct our base-of-knowledge.
Process:
• Prepare summary document outlining all required base-of-knowledge assets
• Hold half-day to full-day discovery session with Cox PR team
• Hold two-hour sessions with each brand served with a select group of key stakeholders (general management, marketing, product, etc.)
• Output comprehensive plan outlining Good, Better, Best options for marketing investment and execution against timing of Q3 2021 to Q2 2022
• Present plan to Cox PR team as well as brand-level marketing team as desired
• Refine plan and build out tactical level plan and master timeline for all work
• Organize and stand up all reporting mechanisms to track KPIs
• Set up quarterly planning sessions to be held at the end of each quarter; purpose is to review past quarter progress, performance, and
future quarter plan refinement
Strategic Planning
Base-of-knowledge categories of insight to be collected (sampling):
• Market economy and impact on Cox Automotive and all key brands (micro e.g., wholesale prices are high, inventory is low—major impact on value/
purpose of vAuto’s Stockwave product and will influence their market story)
• Market dynamics (Porter’s 5 Forces—competition, new entrants, power of suppliers, power of customer, the threat of substitutes)
• Current Cox PR planning documents and collection of key-department oriented goals
• Cox Automotive macro business plan, key initiatives, company events, industry events, defined audiences segmentation and personas, and more
• Brand-level product roadmaps (key focus on launches/enhancements), business plans, and key marketing initiatives, priorities, differentiators,
personas, KPIs, forms of measurement, etc. (CAE + NADA one-sheeters are a good start to brand-level knowledge base)
• Review of current media database, distribution, and coverage tracking tools with special eye toward what works, what is underperforming, assets are
underutilized, etc.
• List of key publications, networks, influencers for Cox Automotive and all key brands (e.g., micro-level view, what products are prioritizing growth/
awareness with independent dealers)
• Key current media relationships and health indexing
• Aspirational publications, networks, and influencers to build relationships with
• Traditional and experimental event history as well as primary goals/KPIs
• Understanding of Cox PR team media training, competency, etc.
• Inventory and health indexing of Cox Automotive and brand-level spokespeople
• Inventory of Cox PR team current/desired assets as well as brand-level key/top-performing content pieces/media assets, etc.
FARM Facts Founded: 1986 HQ: 4493 Walden Ave., Lancaster, NY 14086 Staff: We currently have 54 employees Clients: 23 active clients across 11 major industries Agency Property: 17 acres, 4 ponds, 2 snapping turtles
What We Do
Business Strategy Research Advertising
They say: “failing to plan is planning to fail.” They Like the ingredients in a hot dog, some How do you sell something to people who
also said electronic mail would never catch on, things are better left unknown. But don’t like being sold? Connect with them
but having a plan is truly the only way you can guesswork is the last thing that should on their terms and they may ask if you have
move your business forward with confidence. fuel your business decisions. anything else in the back.
Branding Lead Generation Storytelling
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is The funnel, the pipeline, the hopper—no To be a good storyteller, you need two things:
there to hear it, life goes on. But if your matter your name for it, we’ll provide the care a story worth telling and an audience perched
brand falls on deaf ears, the consequences and feeding, so you never call it empty. on the edge of their seats. Nail the first thing
will only benefit your competition. and you may need extra chairs.Automotive Expertise
Our proven expertise in B2B automotive marketing is unmatched, built upon our foundational knowledge and unique insights that enable our clients to
engage dealers with confidence and precision. We don’t just know dealerships on an operational level; we understand dealers’ behaviors, anxieties, and
needs—actionable intelligence that informs our strategic approach from start to finish. But let’s get more specific. At FARM, we have:
• Comprehensive and deep knowledge of dealership operations and core areas of dealership technology use through our six-year partnership with Cox;
we can hit the ground running for this partnership without putting an onboarding burden/risk on the Cox PR team
• Successfully conducted 50+ research projects in this space over the past 10+ years, ranging from large-scale foundational research studies to
numerous other projects covering a wide variety of topics (both retail automotive dealerships and aftermarket)
• Expertise beyond that of a typical marketing/research vendor; we are a trusted business partner to our clients, providing impactful counsel and
converting research insights into strategic recommendations as well as effective marketing execution to drive resultsIndustry Exclusive Automotive Panel
Our panel currently has approximately 4,500 dealership personnel, including 3,500 from franchise (new vehicle) dealerships and 1,000 from
independent (used-only) dealers.
We take pride in the quality and breadth of our panel. More than 90% are management-level individuals, and they come from all areas of dealership
operations including:
• 650 dealership owners/principals • 1,350 Fixed Operations Directors and Service/Parts Directors and Managers
• 700 General Managers/Presidents • 300 in dealership financial management (CFOs, Controllers, Accounting/
Business Managers)
• 1,100 sales managers of varying levels and responsibilities
(General Sales Managers, New and/or Used Managers, • 400 functional experts who manage specific departments such as information
Internet Sales Managers) technology, marketing/advertising/BDC, F&I, and vehicle inventory/acquisition
Those aren’t the only impressive numbers. We regularly leverage this pool of expertise to gather insights to inform our work.
• 15: The average number of studies done annually with this panel
• One (1) central database for ease of accessAutomotive Experience
B2C Experience
Global Reach. Global Thinking.
Another point of differentiation for FARM is that we are a member of the ICOM Network, a group of 60 independently owned agencies that cover 95% of the
global market. ICOM would provide additional benefits to Cox in the following ways:
• Because ICOM agencies collaborate on education, as well as client work, Cox would gain the benefit of information on the latest trends in marketing
on any special topics that might interest us (e.g., multicultural marketing best practices, current consumer behavior across age and gender, etc.). We
frequently rely on the network to bolster our thinking when we step outside of our comfort zone with clients.
• ICOM helps us with global reach and relevancy, helping work with other agency partners in 95% of the global markets, and with firms within our
border that specialize in multicultural marketing to more niche audiences.
All of this means a seamless experience for Cox that ensures results
regardless of Cox’s or FARM’s experience within a specific global
or multicultural market.Commitment to Clients Finally, it’s important to note that many of our team members who will serve Cox have done so since the beginning of our partnership and will continue doing so long into the future. Already possessing extensive knowledge of your business, they will hit the ground running without requiring a lengthy onboarding process. In working with FARM, you will not be signing up for the “B” team; you will get our top automotive talent and experts who are also well-versed in serving B2C clients. A notable proof point for our agency, beyond client results and satisfaction, is client tenure. SunTrust Bank has been a client since 1990, American Benefits Consulting since 1998, Tops Friendly Markets since 2006, Holiday Valley since 2008, and First Manhattan Consulting Group since 2011. The tenure of our six-year partnership with Cox is another relationship that we are proud of and continuously work to preserve and protect. The bottom line—we’ll deliver.
Don’t Just Take Our Word for It
Randall B. Kobat – VP, Inventory Management Software
“I have worked with FARM in my last two leadership roles, where they have been a valuable strategic partner that helped fuel our
success. FARM’s expertise is much broader than marketing execution, providing the strategic thinking behind it to ensure that our
messaging is powerful and relevant to our audience. From leading in-depth research to better understand dealer perceptions and
needs to crafting marketing plans that help us drive leads and market impressions, FARM has been an integral partner. When it
comes to the dealership market, FARM ‘gets it.’”
John W. Hensman III – Senior Product Director, Mobility
“Our partnership with FARM has been invaluable in defining HomeNet’s strategic path forward. While we expected FARM to lead
in-depth research and gain directional guidance from the marketplace, they proved to be capable of so much more. FARM helped
us translate industry insights into market positioning, product bundling, and pricing changes. This led to marketing execution
containing branding and messaging relevant to our clients that conveys HomeNet’s capabilities and comprehensive offerings.
Their ‘part soul and part science’ approach continually allows us to identify and cultivate future growth opportunities. We consider
FARM a true partner. With their understanding of the automotive market and our core business, they are helping drive HomeNet’s
strategic vision forward.”You can also read
