ASOTU CON Sessions Episode 1: Anthony Jingoli and Ashley Puckett of Effectv

Paul Daly: 0:03You're listening to the ASOTU CON Sessions by Effectv recorded live in Philly.Michael Cirillo: 0:12

All right, so I'm sitting down now with Anthony and Ashley from Effectv a Comcast company. So excited to have you guys here at ASOTU CON Sessions. Thanks for joining me for having me here. So it's now day, what do we classify this as is this day three or day two, day three, day three, it feels like a day a solid day. And, you know, we've there's obviously been a lot of conversations, people culture leadership, but there's also been a very nice marketing and technology stack. And of course, everything that you guys are doing at Effectv, I think flows seamlessly into the marketing and tech stack kind of innovation, stack conversation, what are some of the highlights for you so far, as you've been listening in and participating in the conversations?

Anthony Jingoli: 0:56

Yeah, I've loved all the conversations about data, because I think it's something we're unlocking more and more for our retailers. So how we how dealers can take their data, use it effectively pass it on to other vendors to get the most out of it. And then challenging us to think about how can we make that easy for them, and then share that with other partners, so that they can be more efficient, I think, has been the most sort of telling thing for me,

Ashley Puckett: 1:21

I'm gonna take it a slightly different direction as there was a lot of great conversation about customer experience. And what dealers are doing, you know, in market, there's a ton of dealers that are leaning in innovation, to make that customer journey even easier. And that's been a fun way, we've been able to partner with our dealers this year, as you think about pre order that client expectation of historically you show up, there's all these cars to pick from you get in you drive off that today, it hasn't been that experience. And so now you have consumers waiting for months, and are their frustrations. And so working with dealers to help communicate, hey, here's the process come into our dealership, here's what you're going to expect, and help teaching, you know, their local customers in their backyard, what that experience is going to be like, so when they show up, you know, they're happy, they're excited, because that experience is meeting their expectations, because it is a different experience than transacting with Target or Amazon or anything else. And so helping our dealers get that message out there, so that their customer satisfaction can go up.

Michael Cirillo: 2:22

I love the emphasis on message. And I think, you know, despite all of the tools and the platforms and whatnot, kind of cross referencing back to what you were saying, Anthony about using the data appropriately, I think it's incumbent upon dealership or any business owner, for that matter to figure out what their message is, like, can we just cut through the crap because there's a lot of BS out there. You know, like, like, I think it's in a 2022 world that blows my mind, that we're still forcing our customers to hold up a poster board that we can Photoshop, you should be here. Like surely in a 2022 world, we can do a bit better than that. So as we talk about leveraging customer data, using that first party data, giving that control back to dealer, what are you seeing from your vantage point as some effective messaging or approaches that dealers could be thinking about to take their their marketing to the next level?

Anthony Jingoli: 3:20

Yeah, I think it starts with authenticity. It's sitting down thinking about what what is your dealership stand for? What do you stand for, as a dealer? What are your employees stand for? What is that message you want to put out there, and then conveying it because we believe that that we have the benefit of delivering sight, sound and motion for a dealer, right. And that is a lot of times the first impression that a consumer gets at that dealership. So put some time and effort into what that story should be. And prepare them so that when they do come to market when they are thinking about you and where they want to purchase, they feel comfortable, they trust you. dealers have a huge opportunity in front of them to educate consumers on EV, digital retailing all the evolving trends. And they can be that trusted partner. So consumers think of them first. So I would encourage them to sit down and think hard about what they want to put out in the marketplace. And then make sure they do it in a creative way. And then follow through and be consistent with it.

Michael Cirillo: 4:14

So don't dress up like a banana. Yeah,

Anthony Jingoli: 4:17

I would or pickle for them.

Michael Cirillo: 4:19

I feel like if my team ever convinced me at some point to dress up like a banana or a pickle will also be the day that I retire. I think might be the day I retire because like where do you go from there? You can't pull it back in

Ashley Puckett: 4:34

well then your team or ultimate salespeople or they're able to actually get you in that pickle banana, you know, then you've surrounded yourself.

Michael Cirillo: 4:44

I still retired.

Ashley Puckett: 4:46

So every time to think a career change.

Michael Cirillo: 4:48

You said something interesting actually about just the consumer expectation. We were on the Auto Collabs podcast. We were we had you know we have the opportunity to interview a lot of people from outside of the United States. eats, I had recently had a conversation with some of our colleagues in South Africa. And what I thought was interesting in particular about that market is they never have inventory, like even, even when there's a like, even an on season, like they never you're, you want to order a new car, you're waiting six months for it. And so it's really interesting for us to, you know, perhaps gain some of that insight from our colleagues around the world to understand, oh, like, they've already been in an agency model for five years, you know, and so we can see how they're navigating that we can already see what it's like for customer to have to wait for a vehicle. And so you made me think of that, like the importance of, you know, taking the blinders off a little bit and looking to our compadres, if you will, in other countries to see how they navigate that and what kind of messaging they're putting out and how they how they communicate what the expectation should be. Do you find from your seat, that perhaps sometimes we create problems for ourselves, just simply by not putting an appropriate message out? And by appropriate? I don't mean, like, standing on camera with your pants down? I mean, yeah. Like, maybe you're like, oh, man, why'd we say that? Because now they're gonna think we should be.

Ashley Puckett: 6:17

I mean, we have a team of 150, auto focused team members across the country, whether that's client facing or support teams behind that are putting together these strategies. And I think what Anthony was saying is, you know, it starts with really talking through what's important to you, because a lot of times, you know, used to default to price payment, those type of messaging, and you would go in, and there's this great consumer experience, but they're not talking about it. And at the end of the day, if you only put things on your website, and if you only put things in your showroom, you have to get the people there. So how are you growing your audience and a lot of these, you know, different cities that we work with, there's been so much change in population and everything of who's coming in. And they may not know those local dealers, or they don't know that this is what they stand for. And so it's really sitting down with them, and helping them articulate their message, if you have this great digital retailing tool, but you don't tell anybody it's there, then people don't know that that's an option of how they can transact. And they might think that they have to just show up one day on a Saturday, you know, because if you think about, I mean, the average person's owned a car for 12 years now, you know, that's the average ownership. And so if you haven't been in a dealership in 10 years, what is that preconceived notions you're coming to the dealership with? And so let's, you know, talk with our dealers, what are some of the opportunities? What are some of the problems, and then helping them figure out what is the best message to target? You know, whatever their goal is, and then we'll leverage the data to figure out where should we put that message? What areas of town should we go after? What audience should we target with that message? Given whatever that focus is,

Michael Cirillo: 7:57

I was gonna give you a standing ovation just now. But we realized pre show that whether I stand or sit, I'm the same height at this table. So but I love that. Really, you said, a key word for me. Goal. Because I feel like so often in our industry, we forget that we even set a goal, right? Like we're not properly articulating. The goal isn't to get everyone although I think our human nature wants it to be everyone. But you said messaging that aligns with your goal. And I think it's so important to understand what your goal was, don't forget your goal. So that you know when you get the outcome based on that goal, that you should be happy with it that you're actually seeing success. I mean, a lot about attribution in our industry. When it comes to something like television, and what I'm what I'm really understanding is multi screen. It's not television. I mean, this is television, every single one is television. My kids don't think of television like this, they think of television like this. What are you seeing across the board? I know dealers, in particular want to know, how do I attribute this, but from your vantage point, what should they what's the better question for them to be asking?

Anthony Jingoli: 9:08

Well, I think it's how do I do it across everything I'm doing right? It's, it's the mix. And what we're working really hard at is helping them measure OTT, linear all of their video in one encompassing place. There's a lot of vendors selling a lot of different things, and they're buying from different places. But there's no way to pull that all back together and measure it. So we're very focused on okay, if you're gonna go out and put this campaign out there, and you're gonna have targeted messaging around targeted tactics. What is the result of that across linear across, OTT? And then what is the what's the unduplicated reach of that? Because there is a lot of sort of double dipping there. So we have a unique advantage of Comcast to be able to do that. So we're focused on on that so dealers can start asking Okay, what, what was the effect of all of my video as opposed to my TV did this my OTT did this my day Digital Video did this. And that's something we're excited for. Because I think that's going to create a lot of efficiency so that dealers can focus on how to consistently drive unique campaigns that drive the lifetime value of the customers around them, whether it's sales, service, buyback, whatever that messaging is,

Michael Cirillo: 10:18

you think about the difference between types of goals, right? So everything that you're saying makes me think of demand gen as the goal. And it's something that we don't ever really talk about. We talked about lead gen is way too much in this. We have lead zombies walking around how many leads, you're talking about demand gen. And for me, it kind of a KPI for demand gen is trying to get an understanding of how many doors did this unlock for us? Like how deeply rooted can we get into the community? How many conversations were we able to start? I mean, I even and to me, it's clear as the sun shines as somebody that does a podcast and media production, it's never been about how many speaking gigs did I get? Or how many? How many leads did it generate for my agency, it's always been about how many doors did it actually open. And I think I love this message. Because the more that we can perpetuate the reality of the power of brand messaging into a community, like simply, hey, we have this new tool that you should know about, it's gonna make your life so much easier. Come check out our website and play around with it. I mean, like, oh my gosh, like, it's such a low barrier to entry for customer and a low barrier entry. Message for dealer. Like we should all be saying this to differentiate. So this is a 2022 conversation. Where are things? In your opinion? Where do you think things are headed in the next? Three to five? Are you laughing because you had a conversation?

Ashley Puckett: 11:50

I'm just we joke around us all the time. Like, I think if we knew that I would, you know, you'd already be very smart, maybe millionaire FC in the future? You know, I don't know. But no, all joking aside, like, I just feel like auto industry is always ever changing. And as we know, there's been so many shifts over the past two years. And so I'm kind of excited to just to see how this journey continues to grow. I feel like we're in the middle of a book, and we're in the middle of a chapter and then we're still going to come out and seeing some of the changes and evolution like I talked a little bit about, you know, pre order and how dealers have really been focused on that. And that wasn't something we were talking about with our clients, you know, three years ago. EV, that's been another place. And so that's been an exciting, you know, diving in with the dealers to figure out is there a new you know, EV model? Is that the same type of buyer that was buying their ICE vehicles before? Or is that a different shopper? And so just continuing to have new problems to solve? Or opportunities and diving in? And so I don't know EVs is one place I'm excited. But I don't know if that answers where I see the Doug's in

Michael Cirillo: 13:00

May I also sidebar that a conversation about television, I am enraged by whatever is happening on this TV. I'm infuriated about to punch the air. What is happening here. Oh, there it is. ASOTU CON. I was like flashing lights, I must watch. But maybe that is not organically. Stop watching it. I'm like, pay attention. Pay attention, guys. We

Ashley Puckett: 13:28

have screens everywhere we go. And that's just a message we

Michael Cirillo: 13:31

send to this shoe plan to this guerilla marketing tactic.

Ashley Puckett: 13:36

We are on our phone, our screens, and you guys were

Michael Cirillo: 13:39

just staring at me. You're like, where's he going with this? And then it ended up being your commercial that drew me in for crying out loud. No, I can't No, I just gotta turn like, join our brand like this, because I'm just gonna keep watching the TV. That's, that's I mean, that's an astute observation. If we could be in the future, we'd already kind of like, as weird as that sounds, we'd already be there,

Ashley Puckett: 14:00

riding the wave and just figuring out how we can continue to partner with our dealers and right, figure it out together.

Michael Cirillo: 14:06

And I asked that too, because I mean, I'm sure you guys are tired of having the conversation about how TV has evolved over the years. But really, I mean, it has evolved the way like simply put the way that we think about television, it's not television anymore. It's like it's not tied to the device. It's it's multi screen, it's multi touch. What have you seen just in the last, I mean, we're on the we're on the heels of pandemic lockdown. You know, we talk a lot about consumer behavior change just in the last two years. What are what are some observations you've made at effective and Comcast in that regard? Is there have we really seen that shift in consumer behavior?

Anthony Jingoli: 14:45

Yeah, I think what's interesting is we saw a spike. Obviously people are at home, they're watching a lot more television. But what's what's unique is they're leaning into streaming platforms, but they want to watch it on the big screen. They still want to sit down on the couch and have that experience. So a lot of the OTT that we deliver still ends up at over 80% of it is still on the big screen. So you're still getting that dynamic experience. You could still watch it on your iPad and do all these other things. But we're finding that people want what they always had. And that's right a big large just like you got sucked in on the big screen. Guys. I got sucked in. And that is that's normal. You're very normal. Michael, people are

Michael Cirillo: 15:24

gonna be like a take they planned it. No, they did. And I kept I was like, I see flashing. I gotta, I gotta it's not even football. It's actually I mean, I love this conversation. I want to thank you, Anthony and Ashley so much. I tried. Ashley Anthony Anthony Ashley, the album's coming out this fall. Thank you so much for joining me here on the ASOTU CON Sessions powered by Effectv TV. Thank you, Michael. Thanks so much.

Paul Daly: 15:51

Thank you for listening to this ASOTU CON Session by effective if you want more content like this, you can check out our other podcasts we have a daily show called The Automotive Troublemaker Monday through Friday. Here on podcasts also live streamed on YouTube, and LinkedIn and Facebook. We also have a long form podcast called Auto Collabs, Auto Collabs. And if you just want to go a little different in this community, you should sign up for our regular email we put our heart and soul into it. You can get it for free by going to ASOTU.com We'll see you next time.

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