Digital, Data-Driven, Different with Lucas Neiderer

Kyle Mountsier: 0:00You know, one of the hardest things about being a podcaster is ever. Yeah, the stressing, the anxiety over getting your guest name correct Only if you don't ask, not every three productions on Smith.

‍Michael Cirillo: 0:22

What's really awkward is that most podcasters have some sort of outreach company. That's like we love your book and we've watched all your YouTube videos, will you please join us on the pod. And then you get to the pod and the podcaster has no clue how to pronounce their name. No clue.

Paul J Daly: 0:36

He's like so tell me what you, what you do, darilla, join Mikael.

Michael Cirillo: 0:43

He on smith. Actually it's John Smith oh.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:50

Today we're hanging out with a Lucas a nighter. Like 98.9% positive that I said that correctly nailed it. It's about as good as most people say my name. So here a nighter.

Paul J Daly: 1:04

Oh, now we're gonna, now we're gonna go there look Lucas.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:07

So I, you guys you guys probably don't know Lucas as well, but he's, he's part of the Dolan group and these cats they're like a smaller group, nothing like huge, but they're one of those ones where, like you, just have to pay attention Because the innovation and the way that they do marketing and the way that they perceive brand and all of that is Like top shelf, like most public groups actually can't compete with that. Probably just because they're so nimble. They got a couple guys and gals on staff that are just really really thinking forward. So I always I like I got to sit in a in a cab with him in Phoenix one time and I was like, dude, why, it's like we're just going to dinner. Man, you got to do all that smart stuff like that you know, Well, that's awesome.

Michael Cirillo: 1:55

I can't wait to meet him and can't wait for us to introduce you to him here on AutoClabs. Please enjoy this episode with Lucas nighter.

Paul J Daly: 2:07

All right, lucas, you're a busy man. Thank you for spending some time with us today.

Lucas Neiderer: 2:11

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Good to see you guys.

Paul J Daly: 2:13

So so you're in Reno, correct.

Lucas Neiderer: 2:16

Yes, dealerships based out of Reno, but I actually live in Denver.

Paul J Daly: 2:19

That's, that's what I was asking, because I knew you were remote, so how it's? So let's the most important start there start there. I think that is. That's an unusual Scenario in the auto industry, so tell us a little bit about how it works. Like what? What is your scope of responsibility within the organization? How do you make Denver Reno work?

Lucas Neiderer: 2:39

Yeah, so I'm the director marketing for the group and I lived in Reno for about three years and Right before COVID happened, covid happened was in day-to-day, loved it and During that time you know just an isolating time during COVID, we had two young little girls. We had family and friends in Denver and my wife and I were like we really want to get back to some community. So I went back to the owners and said I love you guys, I don't want to leave, but I got to do this for my family. My family's gonna come first, but I love you so much and they were so great and they said look, we trust you, we love you, will, we'll find a way to figure this out. So it's been about two and a half years now that we did it and I think that's just a testament to the leadership that we have at our group and willing to try new things and explore, and they're just unbelievable people and believe in their employees, which is amazing. So, yeah, so right now I travel in and out about every other week for two or three days, which is great. So I'm in the stores meeting with everyone and, yeah, as I'm remote, I'm working on a slew of things from strategy with our director of innovation, to Websites, to social media. We have a team boots on the ground, so it's kind of a slew of those things that I'm doing remote and then when I'm in the stores, working with the dealerships directly Very cool Hold up.

Kyle Mountsier: 3:53

Your organization has a director of innovation. Call them in. We're gonna have a conversation. So what is okay. What does it like to work? Because a director of innovation, that's an incredible title and having a director of marketing, that's remote, like you know, I'm not sure about that, but it's a great idea. Thank you, that that has to be the incubator for some really, really cool brainchild work of, of effort into the group. What are, what are some of the things that come out of that little like cohort?

Lucas Neiderer: 4:25

Yeah. So the gentleman who's our director of innovation, stefan Precup, I don't know if you guys are familiar with him. He's done a ton in the industry, yeah, and just an incredible human being. So when I came on the group, I came from Toyota corporate, I was a rep and he was the director of marketing at the time and basically took me under his wing every day for you know, two, three years straight. We spent all day together just him teaching me a philosophies of the group and how we think and all those different things. And then he moved on to this director of innovation and then I stepped into the director of marketing role. So, yeah, there's a lot of things that come from that. I mean really anything from remote purchase teams that you know about. 10% of our deals go through our remote purchase team where people can buy 100% online or facilitate any piece of that remotely to Full on buying center. We had a buying center before, but the next evolution of that to that leading into some of the reconditioning centerpieces, to it for that part of the business, to Just the way we think about the business is always how can we challenge the status quo? That's one thing that our ownership is always pushed. How can we let's not just do something, because we've always done it that way. So we have a great executive team and leadership team and we spend tons of time thinking about how we can do things differently and but yeah, it's. It's a fun, amazing environment I'm super fortunate to be a part of. So Stefan it is mine is incredible. So we have some great conversations.

Paul J Daly: 5:46

Well, there's definitely no lack of doing things differently these days, especially in the marketing world. You, coming from corporate, and just the way you're wired is much is like this merger of two worlds between brand-level thinking and Like practical, tactical, data-level thinking. And so we hear all this talk about CDPs over the last 12 months and my favorite topic seems to be getting likes what done to the rug. It was about brand for a while. Now it's about CDPs, but the two live together. And how do you start to reconcile all that? Because you, you have a very your group, the pieces you produce like, you spend a lot of time thinking like how do we keep the brand out Front? How do we keep the feeling out front? So how are you reconciling everything in these days?

Lucas Neiderer: 6:29

Yeah, it's. It's a challenge, for sure, but I think it's exciting. And CDPs are all the hot rage, like DR and subscription before and all those things. But what I love about the the concept with CDPs is how do we take this brand message and this authentic connection with our customers and Leverage the data to connect with them one-on-one and serve them something that's relevant? That's something we've been always talking about for years on branding. But how do we leverage the data to do that and do that at scale? And I haven't found the perfect solution, but that's where my heads out and the things that we're looking at is who are the partners out there? What does this look like? I mean, the hardest part is always the creative piece. How do we take things that match the data points creatively and can? Hopefully, with AI and you know some of the new tools out there we can do that more effectively. But I think when we do that and we People the great marketing isn't felt. We always say that within our team and if we can find ways to connect with people in an Authentic way that's relevant to them, they're gonna want to choose us because they're like man, whatever's going over there. That's amazing. I want to be a part of that, and that's what we're really trying to drive within our group.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:33

So can you say that you said? Did you say great marketing isn't felt?

Speaker 3: 7:37

Yes, what do you mean by?

Kyle Mountsier: 7:39

that like like tease that out a little bit.

Lucas Neiderer: 7:42

Yeah. So I we don't want someone to come on and say, oh okay, I just got served an ad, I felt like they were selling me something. When we put a piece out that connects with someone emotionally and they say, oh whoa, this is really interesting, or like it makes them laugh or smile or feeling, you know, oh man, it makes my heart warm when we can do something like that, they don't feel like they're being sold a product, they feel like we're connecting with them on that emotional level. And I keep saying that. But I think there's something real to that and I think we don't always hit the nail on the head. But we've done a few examples where I think we've done that really well, where we've created some commercial that showcase families and our employees and all these things, it's like, whoa, this was neat, it wasn't just you trying to sell me a car, it was you trying to tell a story. And so we think when we do that, people don't feel like they're being sold. They feel like, oh, they're getting a better understanding of our brand and what we're trying to do, and I think that's really the big piece. When people don't feel like they're being sold, they don't feel that marketing. They just see the brand and wanna be part of that hopefully.

Paul J Daly: 8:49

Got you. There was a piece that your store I don't know how many years ago it was, but it was about being closed on Sunday. It wasn't about any value proposition. Actually, it's kind of like the anti-value proposition. It was like, hey, there's one less day you can do business with us, right, but tell us about that piece and I know it holds a special place in your heart. So explain that and what the feeling was going into it and what the result of it was once you released it.

Lucas Neiderer: 9:18

Yeah, so this is probably one of my favorite pieces. I love it. And so this was a little bit after COVID we're rolling in. The world was just a crazy place when the general public's mind and emotions were and there's just so many tensions, so many crazy things going on. And again, our owners I love the way they think and they said, hey, how can we do this different? And in Reno we are open on Sundays and they've been wanting to close for Sundays for a while, just from an operations perspective, give people an extra day off. So during COVID they said this is the perfect time to do this. And again, going back, they always want to kind of challenge that status quo and think differently. And they said, okay, let's create a spot to promote this, but let's not. You know that sounds crazy. Why are we going to run and advertise? I mean, that says we're closed on Sundays, but we're like we think there's something here. So what we did is we reached out to all of our employees and said, hey, if anyone has photos or videos of you know, you with your family and how you spend your weekends or your days off with them, we'd love to showcase it within a commercial. So we took. All the footage is from our employees and it's actual employees of ours. We cut it together into a 30 second spot of people just hanging out, great music to it, great tone, and it shows all these clips and then at the very end it just says closed on Sundays to celebrate family. And I think, again, that is that marketing hasn't felt. It's just a great way to say, hey, we're going to be closed on Sundays, just FYI. I'd be aware of that. But more than that, it's where we believe in what we say of. You know, our tagline is get an, enjoy the family. It's more than just a tagline, it's something that we believe and we're always going to put our employees first. And you know, something I learned over the years is the customer experience will never exceed the employee experience and I think that's something that our owners and our team really believe in. And again, we can give them that extra day off, they can spend time with families, they can go do the things they love when they are at work. They're going to be so much more productive and the customers are going to feel that.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:13

Well, and I think the other thing that that does right is when people think of any industry that has maybe been like ostracized or that has a poor view, like perception culturally, people do less to humanize the people that are working in that industry, right, all of a sudden it's just like globally, that industry is bad and those aren't people, those aren't even people, right, like no, they don't like hang out with people or have barbecues or anything like that. The minute you put those people in those scenarios, real life probably shot on iPhone, right? Not all clamors.

Paul J Daly: 11:53

Romanticized yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:55

Right and it's like no, these are real people. You actually the message is less actually about being closed on Sundays and it's actually more about these are real people that you get to do business with, and I think that that's where going back to the CDP conversation and maybe you can talk a little bit about this is it's almost like that the if the data is used to enhance the relationship right To actually go deeper and say no, this is not just a one-to-one ad, it's a one-to-one connection. That's where you actually win in marrying data with communication, right, whatever that communication medium would be. So do you see that as like an end goal of? It's not just an ad serve, it's actually a conversation starter. And how are you starting to think about like taking some of those learnings you've had from like global ad sets into this one-on-one conversation?

Lucas Neiderer: 12:59

Yeah, great question. So my dream on this is to leverage the data and let's say, okay, we see someone that is a female within, let's say, mid-30s, has two kids and might be looking for a mid-band, let's say like a C and or something. In my ideal world is we'd be able to create a storyline of a mom jumping in a car, loading her kids in, throwing bags in the back, with the door closed, like something that she is living in, how they will be using this vehicle. That's much more lifestyle. And like, oh man, that aspiration or inspiration Like I can see myself doing that and you know, hauling my kids around or taking them to school, or all these funny things, too, that are real, that you encounter when you're having little kids. So I don't think it has to be super serious as well like kids throwing fits or doing funny things. And now, if we can take all those data points and say this is who this person is, these are the things that they're probably experiencing in their real life. Let's now communicate that to them and they're gonna be like, oh, like this is relevant to me, that this speaks to me and is told in a story. So that's what I would love to do and build out that in a huge scope. But again, the challenge is creatively. That's a heavy, heavy lift, always right. So you know, I'm thinking. The things I've been thinking about are what are the things that we can focus on? First, to connect with those kind of like main customers that already chose us or might wanna go somewhere else and continue to tell that story with whatever their data points are telling us. So that's just kind of my initial raw thoughts on it. But again, there's a ton of work there and what does this scale look like and how can we deliver on that? But I hope that answers.

Kyle Mountsier: 14:43

Yeah, no, it's. I'm telling you the creative is always the hard part, like everybody thinks the data is so hard. But like data spreadsheets, you know, as long as you can connect dots, but creating something that people want to, that they say you know, it's the second half of that sentence. Right.

Paul J Daly: 15:01

Right Creating. Oh, we have creative. It automates it. It's like well, it is an image. It is a thing Right, but how do you? How do you span the gap? You know, one of the conversations that always comes up when we talk about this, this balance or blend, or even trying to assign value to good creative, good thoughtful creative that connects. The question on the other side is like how do you measure the success? How do you measure whether or not that closed on Sunday's video move the needle? How do you measure and justify spending more money on a better creative, you know, like, does it sell more cars? Or how, at least, do you track that? So I'm curious to how, how you place value on it, how your owner's place value on it and how that conversation goes.

Lucas Neiderer: 15:49

That's another great question. So I don't think we do a great job of this. If I'm being completely candid, we don't have this. Oh, we measure this and this one thing that we have been looking at doing for a while is basically doing a brand study locally and going out and saying our customers that live locally, what is your perception of our brand, what do you think of? Do you know who we are? All those things that we might assume or not assume, and get feedback and then running one of these campaigns and saying let's do it for six months, nine months, and going back out and bring the brand left. Yeah, exactly, and it's be like hey is this is moving the needle? I think the second thing at the end of the day, too, is are we selling cars Like? I hate to say that as the metric, but the that's but that's the ultimate metric business out.

Paul J Daly: 16:31

It's the ultimate metric.

Lucas Neiderer: 16:33

If we're doing all these things and our sales are declining, we're gonna have to, you know, switch gears a little bit here. So again, I think we we see a lot of that sentiment, though, as customers come in or from, through the events that we sponsor and things that we're doing, people will be like, man, I love what you guys are doing, or this is so great of you, know how you guys are positioning my experience. That's going on there. So we get a lot of that feedback. But I think the kind of brand study is one thing that is top of mind that we're exploring, and then something that we used to do and kind of just like oh no, like we're gonna stop for a little while that we're actually rolling back out is a post by survey. How did you hear about us? What did you think? Like just capturing some of that raw data to hopefully inform us on, you know, was it the TV ads? Was it? You know, some of the websites they went to? Like it seems so basic and so simple, I mean outside of clairvoyant, all those. We think those are going to be good indicators for the people that are coming in and actually buying the cars from us.

Kyle Mountsier: 17:30

Yeah, and I think there are indicators, because even if someone, like I think, sometimes the fear is like Well, what if that's not the first thing they saw or the last thing they saw, sure, it's at least the thing that was most relevant to them. Right, great point. And I think that that's that's a big trigger. You know, at least you can lean in. Maybe you don't stop something, but you lean into the thing where maybe everything, everyone, it matters, it's most relevant, right?

Paul J Daly: 17:54

Obviously they brought it up, it mattered to them. You know, one of the things that I think some of the best groups that do good brand content well, good creative well is they tie everything back to an overall cost per car sold. And granted, there is no way. But like I mean looping everything. I mean that includes employee salary that work in the creative department, or if you're going to do like a charitable event like that gets in the budget right, you have to get it all together because that number at the end is probably least likely to mislead you. But boy does that take a lot of coordination and discipline to get to the bottom of that.

Lucas Neiderer: 18:25

It does. I'm excited. This is just like one super quick plug. There's a new 20 group that I'm a part of 20m3 marketing directors and that's one thing that we're trying to solve. As a group. We've had a lot of conversations about our first in person meeting this group's just launching and was how can we create that baseline and tie that number in to cost per car sold and what does that look like, and how can we create these benchmarks for the industry and some KPIs and whatnot. So stay tuned on that. I think it's going to be an exciting thing to go through and see what we come up with.

Kyle Mountsier: 18:56

So yeah, I'm excited for that because that's a moving target, like the public's measure in this way and the large groups measure it this way and the single rooftops measure it this way, and OEM once your you know your budget sheet like this, and so it's always so. Everybody's like my cars Picarta sold it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and you're like, yeah, but these guys over here measure it differently than you do over here. So I do think that it's a good. It's a good measurement tool. You know, I always say like measure against yourself first, and against the rest of the industry second, because even 20 group numbers can lie. But I do think that there's there's, there's definitely some value in kind of understanding the baseline there, because it it speaks to like a mix of media attributes, to a mix of sales, right, and we just know like there's not a one to one because we're not Ecom, it's not click by right, there's no Instagram ad that can get you to a purchase. I mean like maybe, maybe at some point. I mean you're doing what? 10 you said 10% is online, which is higher than higher than the average in the market, which is close, still close, to 3%. So kudos to that. Well, lucas, I kind of stole the end of it there, but really appreciate the conversation with you. Had a ton of fun learning we're gonna. I think everybody's like searching Sunday Dolan right Maybe we'll link that up in the show notes as well. But, lucas, been a ton of fun. On behalf of all of us at AutoCollapse, thanks for coming on.

Lucas Neiderer: 20:27

Yeah, thanks for having you guys and thanks for what you guys are doing and the conversations you're having and just making our space such a better place. We really appreciate it. We're trying Absolutely so.

Paul J Daly: 20:41

You know it's been a while since we've had a conversation about brand on the show. And so I'm so glad it went in that direction, because I almost forgot that that's something we talk about intentionally around here.

Kyle Mountsier: 20:54

Right, that's like everything all three of us talk about, yet we never get to talk about it. Because if we were the ones that used to talk about it kind of thing All the time, yeah, exactly, no, lucas, they're dialed in. And like the fact that you, when he was like oh no, we created a whole commercial about being closed because we saw it as an opportunity to talk about more than just selling a car Talk about how we love our people, how we care for the community, what we give back to our people, how our people are actually humans and want to go hang out with their families. That's a bold move. There's not many dealers that would actually communicate that to the public outside of like a banner at the top of their web stroka genius.

Paul J Daly: 21:37

They actually probably try to avoid the conversation.

Michael Cirillo: 21:40

This is the thing that stands out to me, especially in this digital era and with so many unknowns as far as technology and all the places you can find answers. Despite the trillions of data points that we can access through Google, it's shocking to me how poor the answers still are in 2023. And so here you have a company that is like wait a minute. The whole methodology is they ask, we answer, and in so doing, builds all this trust and affinity. And I mean to me it's like, and I think to the three of us it's such an old brainer it's like. Of course I would make a video about being closed, because I can think of how many times I've scheduled a service appointment for a dealership through their online system and rolled up to the bay doors and they don't open. And then you see a little sign on the tape to the outside of the door that's like given the unforeseen circumstances of heavy rain, we are, you know, you're like what? What the heck doesn't make any sense. So I love that they're leaning into brand and certainly you know all of the dealers that pay attention to that and stop getting out of this. It must, one to one, map to a car sale and actually building relationships and answering people's questions just seems like such an old brainer strategy to me, and so we're glad that we're able to bring you that conversation with Luke Niderer here on AutoClub. On behalf of myself, michael Serillo, paul J Daly and Kyle Mounsier. Catch you on the next one.

Speaker 3: 23:11

Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news and automotive retail media and pop culture. You can get it now at aso2.com. That's ASOTUcom. If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.

Kyle Mountsier: 23:42

Welcome to AutoCollect.

Speaker 3: 23:46

Oh, we're recording.

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