Consistency Across All Platforms with Charlie Wineke and Ryan Dooley

Kyle Mountsier: 0:00Every once in a while we get on these calls and we we dream about what could be. This is Auto Collapse which is, at some point, michael is just going to grab a guitar and we'll start singing. That's when all of you oh, he did May leave the auto. Oh no, it's too much fun Doing these with you guys, and I just have you know what I love is I have for these podcasts. It's like we know the people really well, we've gotten to know them. We bring them on and then the other half it's like I don't know who this person is, but I know they have a story with an automotive that's probably unique and interesting and this is why we have Auto Collapse.

‍Paul J Daly: 0:50

We think about effective and how they are kind of responsible for distributing a lot of stories. They think about all the placements, and so I mean we're always super pumped when, when they step up the partner with us, like this year for a Soda Con and last year by being the sponsor for the podcast stage, so it kind of feels appropriate, right, that effective is telling the stories because even in their, in their endeavors, professionally, in the service they offer, but also in kind of like their heart and their belief, they kind of love being the center point where all these stories get out into the world. So you know, it feels appropriate.

Michael Cirillo: 1:26

Yeah, last year at a Soda Con. I think that I I can't believe I'm about to admit this on National live television. Yeah, it was the first time I heard of them. Was that a Soda Con last year?

Paul J Daly: 1:40

I don't know what you lived in Canada, you live in.

Michael Cirillo: 1:43

Canada. Oh, that's right. I was Impressed with the way they they think about, like they have a whole methodology that they're thinking about, and how do they bridge the gap between what Dealers understand from a traditional broadcasting perspective to the the landscape today, which I always appreciate, and so, of course, we're excited to hang out with our new friends today from effective.

Paul J Daly: 2:10

Hey Ryan, charlie, thanks for joining us today. It's it's fun to have two people who are both in Baltimore at the same time and are both Orioles fans probably.

Ryan Dooley: 2:19

Yes, and Raven's fans. It was a good, good weekend to be a Baltimore sports fan.

Paul J Daly: 2:25

Ryan, ryan, it's our first time.

Ryan Dooley: 2:27

That hurts the bangles fan.

Paul J Daly: 2:30

Oh, that was this thing you got close. Right, ryan, give us a little background. I think you're the first one we've had on the show who is like an agency owner that serves specifically dealer ships In the area and like you're kind of coming in from a unique perspective. So give us a little bit about your background. Like, are you from the Baltimore area? How did you get into this line of work and how did you walk into dealerships of all places?

Ryan Dooley: 3:05

Yeah, so I'm born and raised in Baltimore. I went to Towson University right north of Baltimore and then I kind of started my career in television sales and actually some television production with a local ABC affiliate here, did a lot and advertising kind of went to a couple different locations, then started at an agency back in 2016 and that agency at the time was actually working with Tate Automotive, which is they have two locations in Glen Bernie and Frederick down here and Things kind of evolved and there's an opportunity for me and Gentlemen who have been working with Tate for about 20 years at that point to kind of golf on our own and service Tate exclusively. And I've always loved cars, always loved jeeps. Actually, my first first car was a 93 Jeep Grand Cherokee and I've always driven Grand Cherokee. Since of the ability to do advertising and help an automotive dealership, especially a Jeep dealership, came very naturally and is very, very exciting to me. So, and you know Tate's got such a long history in the in the Baltimore Maryland area. It's still a family-owned dealership, two locations and you know we're one of the top volume dealers in the States. So Certainly, keep me busy, I love working with both locations and, you know, really just allows me to do what I love in terms of marketing and advertising and, you know, do it for a, for a business that's well run, very successful, and it sells a product I'm personally interested in myself, so it makes my makes my job very easy.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:28

Yeah, that makes a lot easier. You're like I can put ducks everywhere.

Charlie Wineke: 4:32

I've yes, right, you just came from Ocean City Beach week, right, jeep week yeah.

Ryan Dooley: 4:37

Jeep week. Yeah, my wife and I were about down there she's a Jeep fan too so we went down, we took our two nieces and I got to drive on the beach and all that. And actually it was fun too, because you know I'm down there and I'm able to, you know, take some pictures put up on Tate's Facebook page, and you know, I try to do a little bit, you know.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:53

Yeah, you know, you know, I get all.

Paul J Daly: 4:58

I got a Yeti cooler sponsorship through it in the Jeep right got the family.

Ryan Dooley: 5:03

That's what I'm saying, you know. I'm, you know, hanging out at the beach at Jeep week and I'm like, yeah, this is, this is part of my job. This isn't a it's in a bad deal. You know, that's true.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:11

Like just just shortly quick us and aside there's so many random cool things that people get to do in automotive right. Like truth, because there are car shows and Jeep Week and you know drives up in the mountains in Tennessee and all these types of things, like you. Just we think about car sales as like oh so cars, service cars, it's like no there's so many more cool opportunities. I mean I know Chevy dealers that get to go down and, and you know, drive at the Corvette Museum and stuff like that there's just so many opportunities like that.

Charlie Wineke: 5:45

It's really it's a lifestyle.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Charlie, tell us a little bit about, because you you're more on the effective, on the media, advertising side of stuff and obviously you and Ryan, it sounds like, have more similar backgrounds than I even knew, with Ryan having having some background in the TV sales side. But what's your journey in automotive? Look like.

Charlie Wineke: 6:08

Well, I started in the local newspapers in the Annapolis and Baltimore area and came aboard effective and basically really got all both hands and feet into automotive. I love automotive. Dealing with the dealers, the agencies. The personalities are fantastic. I've been doing it for now 1720 years now. And I like I said it's a lifestyle that you know. It doesn't end at five o'clock in the afternoon, it doesn't start at nine in the morning. It's, it's. It's really exciting and it seems less like work than more like a part of my, my daily lifestyle, and it's easy. How can put it?

Kyle Mountsier: 6:52

I like that I feel that I'm my core Not bad.

Paul J Daly: 6:57

Well, look, one of the things that you know we talk about a lot is the auto industry going through a lot of transformation in these last few years. Now, ryan, maybe you could just share with us a little bit how you know your work with Tate and the dealership as a whole kind of has evolved over the last few years to meet the changes, meet the challenges.

Ryan Dooley: 7:17

Yeah, I mean, you know the past, you know, looking back, I guess three years has been been very unique, especially, you know, when COVID came along and everything shut down. And then you know, I think with most industries, especially the auto industry, we didn't really know what to expect. And you know, the auto industry did surprisingly well during that. I think, especially the product we sell, primarily Jeeps and Ram trucks A lot of people who would take a lot of vacations and all found themselves in positions where they were looking for vehicles that they could, you know, maybe to a boat, to a camper, go off-roading in a Jeep and kind of do stuff a little more you know to themselves, and they took advantage of that. So the automotive industry did very well during that time. Rates, of course, were certainly very low then. So you know, we were selling a bunch of cars and then all of a sudden the inventory dried up because the chip shortage and the supply chain shortage. So we went from having a lot of cars to sell to not having a lot of cars to sell but the demand was still Sounds familiar. And then, you know, now we're finding ourselves in a position where we have a lot of inventory. We're doing well, you know we're still one of the top. You know one or two dealers in the state, consistently monthly, but just overall consumer demand seems to be dropping off a bit and I personally think that's the interest rates being higher. I think there's a lot of people out there that you know are accustomed to, you know, being able to finance it one or two, maybe 3%, and they're not going to do it at 6% or 7%. I don't know in the short term kind of how that's going to be adjusted, but it has certainly been a very wild ride. And just when I feel like I've got something figured out, something else comes along. And on the flip side, when something happens where I think you know this is really going to hurt our overall sales or bottom line, you know we weren't selling a lot of cars, we were making a lot of. It's the inverse. It grows on it because you know they were in demand.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:04

It's just it is a scripted. How do you approach like a week or a day, or a week or a month or a quarter when it comes to like, specifically, media spends and media mix and what the brand communication is, when it is like? I saw someone this morning on LinkedIn and they were like, literally, the used car market is changing daily, right, so how do you like, what's the approach that you take to creating a media mix that is opportunistic, based on the changes, but not to like knee jerk at the same time?

Ryan Dooley: 9:39

So, from a media mix perspective, you know I and Tate, you know, kind of find ourselves very fortunate where we had a very solid media mix in place before COVID hit. We had really been able to do a lot of things and utilized really all aspects of media, whether it be, you know, the targeted cable, like we do through a Charlie, and effective, and then of course, you know paid search, email, social media, all these other targeted digital tools. We really had a good plan in place and when COVID hit and you know we're kind of, you know, navigating through those waters all of the metrics continue to perform well in terms of clicks, page views, time on site, and then even when we were a little less an inventory, the metrics were very consistent based on the inventory. So my media mix hasn't really had to change and evolve because I feel like we were fortunate to be in a place where everything kind of clicked. We have added a few things, we've tweaked a few things here and there, but overall, from a media perspective, we kind of look at it more quarterly and yearly, but it's really the messaging that has been most important recently, as inventory has begun to get back on dealerships lots and the factory wants to move it. They're starting to do a lot of different incentives and especially the push for plug-in electric vehicles. It's really trying to figure out all right, how do I get someone to come to my lot and buy my car, because everyone's got the vehicles now? Everyone's throwing out the same offers and rebates. So what makes us unique? What makes somebody wants to want to come to Tate as opposed to somewhere else? So that's more of the monthly focus. But I think that having a dealership with the Tate name in a 60-plus years longevity, really a staple in the Glenburny area, certainly helps. And just reminding people that it's still a family-owned, family-run dealership that's going to take good care of you. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:29

Charlie, I kind of heard Ryan there talk a little bit about like we just had a media mix and it was working, so we kept the media mix going. Have you seen because you work with a bunch of different dealers across the Baltimore area where you're at, and have you seen the dynamics of people that kind of keep that similar always-on strategy in their media mix, or people that kind of do work based on knee-jerk reactions and shifts and adjustments is there a difference in the way that they're able to approach the market and also drive sales month over month?

Charlie Wineke: 12:08

Well, yeah, I mean Ryan and Tate for that matter for the past three years of all this transformation and all, they've kept a consistent approach of targeting the audience that they are looking to reach In this matter. They would reach Jeep buyers, truck buyers for the Ram products and, to their credit, they stayed on with us with a consistent present approach during these times which really I think and Ryan can attest to that when the supply came back and when the deals started coming back and the inventory was there, they were ready and did not miss a beat. They actually came out in a good way from this three months or three years of uncertainty and of course we're approaching it now with more uncertainty but their consistent approach to targeting the audience that they are trying to reach, despite the challenges within interest rates and supply chain, they kept a solid force and they've done better than I won't say better, but they've done well for themselves because of their consistency and their strategic approach. T Tirely walks all back to go get that's a couple of clients ever it helps.

Kyle Mountsier: 13:42

Sorry.

Michael Cirillo: 13:43

No.

Ryan Dooley: 13:43

I was just going to add. It also helps to the fact that we always have been and are consistently one of still the top volume dealers in the state. So when you go through periods where inventory is a little slow and stuff like that, we do get inventory. We still have that name.

Paul J Daly: 13:58

Not even more allocation in general.

Ryan Dooley: 13:59

Yeah, so it is. We use that to our benefit. Still through some of the tough times industry-wide.

Paul J Daly: 14:06

I mean there are a lot of studies out there that do pretty unequivocally prove that when you keep the drip of brand messaging going toward throughout downturns, that it does disproportionately affect market share coming out of the downturn. Some of the biggest studies always around the CPGs and brands like Coca-Cola and some of the big ones, but also lesser brands, and it's just a really consistent thing that we see, regardless of the downturn, whether it's economic or due to something like COVID? I want to shift the conversation for a second because we are seeing a renewed focus on what does the customer journey look like? Where does it start? What paces and processes does it go through before they actually elitist submit it or someone shows up in the showroom? The media options are a lot different, the way people interact with media A lot different. We covered a story on our new show this morning talking about how Gen Z specifically values reviews and how that's such an important part of their customer journey. So I would love to hear from your perspective, how do you see the customer journey changing and how are you responding to that via the type of media or the type of placements you're making?

Ryan Dooley: 15:23

So the customer journey obviously has continued to evolve over the past three, five, 10 years, especially and it really started, I think, about 20 years ago when the internet really became the hub of everything that everyone does and the sense of where it used to be. When you bought a car, you had an idea of a brand or two that you'd like and you go to the showroom and hope the sales guy knew what he was talking about and he'd show you everything, and then you'd find out the price from the manager. Yeah, and look at the price.

Paul J Daly: 15:50

He had it for three hours. He said a lot.

Ryan Dooley: 15:53

Right, yeah, there's your options. Well, now it's basically a lot of our customers, especially for new cars, they come in and that's the car they want, because they have been able to do all of the research. Yeah, online They've been able to not only get down to the options they want but the color, and a lot of times it truly is a come in. They give it a quick drive, but it's just basically completing the sales process because all the pricing we're very transparent and very upfront with our pricing too. Our Tate Everybody price is truly the Everybody price and we make it so if somebody, literally if somebody, wants to buy that car and they're going to pay cash or a bank check with it, they can take that price, send a lead in and they'll say that's your price plus your tax and all that stuff, and they can come in with a check and there's no issue with it. And I think that's really important because customers want the ease. They want buying a car to be as simple as going to Target and buying some groceries. They don't want it to be an eight, nine hour or deal and that's going to continue to evolve.

Kyle Mountsier: 16:57

I'm finding this as a theme that dealers that have there's kind of like this consistency, like consistent always on brand messaging, matching, clear pricing, typically a lot of times called like one price dealerships I don't know how far you at Tate go right and high lifetime value of customer. It sounds like that's kind of the move. Have you seen it Like? Have you been a part of the transition toward more of that and seen that drive like your cost per acquisition or cost per car sold down?

Ryan Dooley: 17:37

Um, yeah, you know, thinking back about that, we were kind of one of the front runners out there a couple years ago to really come out with the everybody price, where it did make it simple Just in the way we list our rebates, and we still do it to this day. We have it broken out where you see online, you see the MSRP, you see the Tate Desk and then you see the rebates that everyone qualifies for and that's the Tate Everybody price. Now we list other conditional rebates underneath that. A lot of people may qualify for military first responder, you know, returning owners, stuff like that, but there's no ambiguity in terms of, oh well, but that price actually doesn't include this or that. You know, oh, I didn't realize I had to be trading in my, my Ram Truck sort of thing, and by doing it that way we did it in a sense to give people a clear alternative to. You know we might not show the cheapest internet price out there, but the internet price that you see from us is the real price and you're not going to waste your time and go to a dealership and then have them say, oh no, I'm sorry, that price is actually $2,000 more and that was kind of our benefit, of truly wanting to value people's time, understanding that not only is it a large purchase, but time is valuable and the less you need to worry about when you walk into that dealership, see the car you like and know the price, and the easier it is to get through the finance office and get out, like you said, it creates more of an enjoyable experience. They're more likely to leave a positive review. People certainly look at reviews more than they ever have and it just gives that you know kind of reinforces the fact that Tate's a good family run dealership that's going to treat you well and it's going to make the car buying experience easy for you.

Kyle Mountsier: 19:15

That's awesome, charlie. You know one of the like in that customer consideration and understanding all of the dynamics that's at play the pricing, the messaging, the messaging the brand, what's going on before the purchase happens in a multitude of mediums. And it's interesting to me that, like because there's so much focus on, you know, facebook and Google and trying to move things away from third party listings in auto and some people agree or disagree about that, and then you've got the massive OTT and streaming push. A lot of times we don't create these robust media mixes, are you? You know the data that Comcast and Effective have, I'm sure, is seeing the shopper journey across multiple mediums of influence. What's been the biggest change, or maybe the most consistent thing over the last two years that you're seeing in the way that shoppers are actually finding their path to purchase?

Charlie Wineke: 20:16

Well, I, fortunately I work with Effective we're for Effective and it's a full funnel approach and advertising. You know we're advertising we. You know we like to look at the brand and fortunately for Tate, for that matter, we are in a transient area of military bases, what means around we have government, and it's important for me or for Tate to establish the brand that no one may not have heard of before because they're not locals or if you would, and I think that helps in terms of the customer journey, where they're not just sold to the, they're not just looking at the vehicle description page on a website, that they're actually listening to the message, the Tate message that Ryan and his team creates, where that it is a easy approach to buying a car and they've been in business for a long time and they just stress the brand of Tate and the ease of doing business. And when you have someone who is not aware of, say, tate, if you will, because they're from other areas, I think it gives them a leg up a little bit for certain buyers and I think we're seeing that, you know, very successful here in Baltimore.

Paul J Daly: 21:32

Well, I'll tell you what. Charlie and Ryan, obviously you are all paying a lot of attention to the moving and the transitioning and the shaking that's going on. So glad we're going to get to spend some time with you next week at a SodaCon bringing the show to your hometown. Thanks for spending a few minutes with us today and I'm sure we're going to spend a few minutes together next week.

Ryan Dooley: 21:53

Thank you guys, thanks for having us.

Paul J Daly: 21:59

So I love when we get the perspective from you know a few different points, right, industry partner agency, but you know, being on the ground at Tate Automotive so frequently and being so dialed in with you, know what they're doing on a regular basis. I love it from somebody who didn't like grow up in automotive, which I guess is kind of a pretty common story. But the point and it's come up a lot of times over the last you know, two or three years after, like the pandemic and the lockdowns is that just the consistency in brand marketing always comes out ahead and then struggling to figure out how you can keep that consistency when, when you're also trying to layer on things like offers and laying on over things that are like just like bottom of the funnel activities, like how can we continue like pull things up the funnel just a little bit. That's one of my favorite.

Kyle Mountsier: 22:48

Well, this is, this is what's key about that for me is like he was also talking about the fact that and and I see this a lot those that talk about brand messaging primarily in their marketing and and their mix they're also talking about progressive things like Simplifying pricing, better processes in the showroom, better communication with customers like there's a through line To that and the dollars on cost per car sold, the Reduction and necessity for for new customer acquisition. All of those things are trailing like it's. It's almost like there's a pattern here.

Michael Cirillo: 23:28

Well, it just you know what, like I love doing auto collabs because it I don't know how many episodes we're in now, but there's this, there's this tapestry that is starting to weave itself together, right, I think to past episodes. You know episodes with like Diff, right from foundation and he's now partner in a dealership and why? All of the connections that he made. We're talking to marketing executives that are like hey, by the way, we don't work in automotive, we work in marketing, but Collaboration critical inside of automotive and there's room for us, and then you hear a conversation like this and it's also like a Collaboration critical, which is exactly the mission that we're on, and so All of these threads come together, hopefully to paint a picture or create a tapestry. I think that's the analogy I'm using and obviously we hope you enjoyed this episode of auto collapse.

Speaker 2: 24:22

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Michael Cirillo: 24:53

Welcome to article.

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