The $91 (Canadian) Dollar Marketing Campaign with Devin Sooley

Michael Cirillo: Did you know that $25 Canadian is free US dollars?

Speaker 2: This is auto collabs. It is I've heard that.

Kyle Mountsier: Actually I went to Canada one time with $2, just $2. How?

Paul J Daly: long ago was this.

Kyle Mountsier: Literally got out of there with a steak dinner. It was nuts.

Paul J Daly: No, that was McDonald's That was McDonald's.

Michael Cirillo: This reminds me, though, no, when I was in college, i remember I didn't have a ton of money obviously none of us do in college And I tried to get as creative as possible. We're like I love to cook, So you know, i would say to the girl pick a number between zero and two, and they'd be like 0.75. I'm like we have 75 cents to buy food to make a meal for our date.

Paul J Daly: Oh, she's like dang And there was this store.

Michael Cirillo: I can't remember what it was called, but it was like you know you buy this steak, but it was like had a silvery Oil, I guess sheen.

Kyle Mountsier: I guess sheen, i sheen, that's not enough about.

Kyle Mountsier: Canada, but our guest today is actually Canadian. Devin Suley was all over LinkedIn and his group was all over LinkedIn And I just like pounded the LinkedIn DMs because we had to have a conversation about what they're doing. So we literally know nothing about Devin, except for he owns a camera and takes really nice photos and video of cars for an auto group. So I'm interested to see exactly what that's all about. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Devin. All right, we are sitting here with Devin Devin. Thanks so much for giving us a little bit of your time today, man. Thanks, yeah, happy to be here, devin. So we're just going to jump right in because I'm scrolling through the old LinkedIn just like thumb scrolling, just trying to find something good.

Paul J Daly: This is the old LinkedIn.

Kyle Mountsier: The old LinkedIn that actually nobody, except for the people in auto use, that's like. But I'm scrolling through it and I see this like epic video photo montage thing of cars. I was like that's cool, slowed down. And then I realized that it was from a dealership group and I was like, hold up, wait a minute. They got some B roll from the OEM. And then I was like no, that's a real person from the real thing. I immediately say whoever's responsible for this, dm me. And that's when you responded All right, so walk us through specifically that, then we'll probably track back. But you are taking a tour of Canada in a vehicle. Tell us a little bit about that, yeah.

Devin Sooley: So it's just like a mini tour that the dealership put off. So basically, hyundai Atlantic Canada sent all the dealerships Theonic 6, eb to go pick up Other stores obviously just picked them up and drove them right back to dealership. We want to do something a little bit different where we want to make a trip out of it And also my background being photo and video and my coworkers being photo video We said Newfoundland has such a rugged landscape and it's beautiful scenery. It's also a very big island that takes 12 hours to cross.

Devin Sooley: Why don't we take the car and try to get the most scenic shot possible with the car that we can find in Newfoundland? because it's such a beautiful spot to shoot photos in And a lot of the OEMs don't realize that and they will give us products that are city scapes or downtown Toronto or stuff like that for us to use, which doesn't really pertain to our market. So we said if we're driving the car back, we're going to take our three days and we're going to drive it 2000 kilometers back EV style and try to get as many cool photos as we can in the tourism spots that we can. The catch was we only had 72 hours because the car did have to be back on the lot that Monday And we came back.

Devin Sooley: So we did have to limit where we were going and be pretty quick on it. So there was a lot of 20 hour days trying to just, you know, motor through, get lots of content, lots of photos, and along the trip with the photos we also had the vlog, the whole thing for our video series that we're doing obviously with it as well.

Kyle Mountsier: That's amazing. So I mean 2000 kilometers from Newfoundland.

Devin Sooley: So what you got to Quebec City We started in Halifax, Nova Scotia, And at the end of it when we get back to St John's. Really it's not 2000 kilometers, But when we left Halifax we had 20 kilometers on the car, brand new. When we landed back here at dealership St John's we had 2000, based on all the tourism spots we were visiting and all that kind of thing.

Kyle Mountsier: And three days.

Devin Sooley: Three days Yeah.

Paul J Daly: Because, well, you had to charge that thing We did, that's what. I'm wondering Yeah, i'm like 12 hour island How many chargers are out there in the middle of this beautiful rugged territory?

Devin Sooley: Yeah, so lucky enough Newfoundland, albeit it is a little bit slower on new tech coming in. I got to admit the EV infrastructure on the highway is pretty good. We have a level three charger every 70 kilometers on the highway. It's when you veer off that highway that it gets a little bit more sketchy. But I got to admit the Onyx 6. Was pretty true to range If it was saying it was going to get 400 kilometers within 5 to 10 kilometers. It was getting that And we found out pretty quick which really helped our trip to say okay, yeah, we can push it to this limit and get to the next charger. There was a few cases that we probably should have stopped And we said, no, we'll motor on, but yeah it's stuck at all?

Paul J Daly: Or was it just like nail biting Like?

Devin Sooley: it was. No, it was pretty good Now coming from. We didn't really account for how far from Halifax to North Sydney, where the ferry is to get back to Newfoundland, where Newfoundland is an island. We didn't account how far that would take us and how long it would take. So we left for him in Halifax, drove about three hours, charged up in a little small town somewhere in Nova Scotia for about 25 minutes and then motor on to North Sydney. Got to the North Sydney, charged up there next to the ferry terminal in a grocery store parking lot, went in, got a few snacks, hanging around, doing a few stuff, cleaning off the car. I think we had loads of time. When we got there, actually, we only had 4% of battery left, so that was a little bit nail biting.

Paul J Daly: Yeah, it was a little bit like you. Turn everything off, right. No, ac, no radio.

Devin Sooley: No, nothing We're like cool. Maybe I can plug in the car the camera battery in the car somehow and reverse charge it.

Devin Sooley: Yeah. But so we got there, we charged up, we were taking our time, we're like, okay, that's, 25 minutes is good enough. And then we moved our way to the ferry terminal, only to pull into the ferry terminal And we're like, Oh cool, there's no cars here. like, sweet, no weight, no, nothing we can load right on. We pull up to the window and the girl looks at us and goes you're supposed to be here two hours ago if you're loading a vehicle. And we were like, and she was like, already, go down to make sure that the boat's still open to take vehicles. I'm not sure if they close the gate already. And we're like, if they close this gate, we have to wait until the next ferry riding, which is eight hours time from one.

Kyle Mountsier: Oh my.

Devin Sooley: God, which would have drove us into midnight And we wouldn't land back in Newfoundland until, like the next, please.

Paul J Daly: we're making a show, we're touring the country, please.

Devin Sooley: It's funny because we had the GoPro on the dash as well And it recorded the whole like interaction, and you see both our faces just change like.

Kyle Mountsier: I love the theory you're like always be recording. something's gonna happen, right.

Devin Sooley: And so then, right before that, like I said, my buddy, like we pulled in, he's like, oh great, there's no cars here, like no weight, and that's why they're already on the boat waiting, basically the dock. And lucky enough, they were like we're just about to close the gate, next, like minute, like they can get down here, like we can load them on. And sure enough, we motor down down through the dock, got onto the ship, right behind all the transport trucks, everything. We're literally the last car on. So we just made it in time and got off the ferry And then the real trip started, basically because that was just to get us back to Newfoundland, basically, so that was a fun Going.

Devin Sooley: Yeah, so yeah, that was pretty fun, but it worked out because we landed in Port Abass, which is a small little fishing community where the ferry docks and the sun was setting beautifully, just like as we arrived, and we spent far too long just on the side of the highway, shooting most of our clips just there, because it looks so nice, epic, that's unbelievable.

Kyle Mountsier: So so your background then is is not auto right Like auto is pretty, pretty new for you?

Devin Sooley: Yeah, auto and marketing is pretty new to me. to be honest with you, My actual background educated background is in Navy architecture.

Speaker 2: Total left field. Yeah, so I right, yeah, right, you do.

Devin Sooley: So I was up in BC working on a submarine program up there randomly but on the side. When I was still in BC I did a lot of photo video work And I actually lucked in with daily driven exotics, their YouTube channel. So I was their video editor and shooter for about a year and a half or so, doing daily blogs and all that kind of stuff. So I lucked in that way And then when I moved back home to Newfoundland I was still doing a architecture but it wasn't really jiving with me. I've always liked photo and video. I love cars I own a classic car myself and stuff like that So I've always loved automotive and What do you have?

Devin Sooley: I have a 69 Austin Mini 850.

Kyle Mountsier: Oh, come on now.

Devin Sooley: I'm going to do a plug there. Now He has an Instagram, so it's Norris the Mini Did you say he has an Instagram. Yeah, In my all my friends and my family. It's a he.

Paul J Daly: It's a he. Usually cars are girls. Usually cars are female, like a lot of you. take she.

Devin Sooley: I catch myself saying she, and then people correct me He's like Norris is a guy. I'm like yeah, they're like ah ah, ah. The person I bought it off, their kid, named him Norris, so I just kept with it, and it looks like a Norris, i guess. So.

Paul J Daly: I need to find him a Norris. Okay, what's the Instagram? Tell us the Instagram handle.

Devin Sooley: Norris the.

Kyle Mountsier: Mini Norris N-O-R-R-I-S The Mini. Yeah, I got it.

Devin Sooley: He's like I got it Right now. So what? Yeah, so that's pretty cool. So that's where I take a lot of my inspiration to, and you know, for social building and automotive and stuff like that.

Michael Cirillo: So Let me ask you this from a creative perspective, right Sure, where I think a lot of people get stuck going a car is a car is a car is a car is a car. They have four doors, they have four wheels. There's, like you know, how do you think about it in from a creative perspective, to say, but I'm going to highlight something different about this thing that we all already know about.

Devin Sooley: Does that make sense. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, like um. So there's a lot of automotive content out there, obviously, and I get a lot of messages, especially on Norris page, like how, how do you get so many followers? What are you doing different?

Paul J Daly: Honestly, i just This is great, by the way.

Speaker 2: I'm just looking at it now. No, thank you. This is great, by the way, step one by a really small car.

Devin Sooley: Yeah, really small. I used to park it in a 10 foot five, five foot shed. I'm a backyard which you fit a lawn mower in and fit perfectly, so it's really really small But um yeah, i'm sorry interrupted you.

Paul J Daly: I couldn't help myself Oh good.

Devin Sooley: No, The. My creative process on it is just I. I I like to make content that people find interesting and that they can engage themselves in, And it's not so much just telling what I'm doing or telling you about what you already know, It's more of just Hey, look at this cool, different thing and make interactions, And I like having my followers on that page interact with me more than me interacting with them, basically.

Kyle Mountsier: Um, so I do a lot of social is social. Yeah, i like to get polls going.

Devin Sooley: I like to group chats and all that kind of stuff, and I like comments and letting them feed me what they want to see with the car, and just the newfound landscape Again just really makes that different, i find. Um now, mind you, norris only has 39 horsepower, so I'm not getting very far, hopefully. Uh, there's a lot of highways here, there's a lot of fast drivers and he can't really keep up, so that's a I mean.

Michael Cirillo: I mean, let me cause I like I'm, i'm sitting here, i got you, i I'm looking at Norris here. Um, i think like there's a lot of people who have the ambition to do this from a creative perspective, dealerships, in fact, and and they would post this and it would get nothing.

Michael Cirillo: So what it I mean, we know the social aspect, but how are you tackling this from a strategic perspective to and a creative perspective, to say like No, like you had so much confidence saying no, like I'm just gonna show this vehicle in a way that I like. And then there's this confidence of but people are like that too.

Devin Sooley: So from a dealer side, before I started here capital I actually worked with another local group here dealership group and I was their content strategist for their automotive and Basically, for example, we started a tick tock for them new to the industry. It was kind of seen as a little bit of a why we doing tick tock as an automotive dealership for automotive group Come on right We ended up growing it to over 8,000 followers In less than a year or so.

Devin Sooley: Basically, my idea with that was the same with the Instagram. We grew their Instagram over 2,000 followers in a local small market. Here We seen that as a big win. Only because the content I've made wasn't so much about here's a car, here's how much you can finance it for, here's the features that it has.

Devin Sooley: I did more automotive content in the sense of let's guess the car with five hints. Let's Can you. What's automotive trivia. Who vented the seatbelt first and made it a patent-free Seatbelt? I'm kind of thing then with some new stuff. But also like car news, like there was a Cargo carrier ship that sunk recently with millions of dollars worth of supercars and they're just sitting at the bottom of the ocean now. People found that interesting. People liked engaging and engaging themselves into the conversation of can I guess this car with the five hints. So it wasn't typical dealer content, it was more that entertainment side of things. And at my last group too, we did a verse. I did full review videos 20 minutes long just over viewing the car And that's how much. Reviewing it, just letting people know every little detail and spec, and that resonated very well on their YouTube because it Wasn't just an opinion made it thing, it was more just the owner manual in video form, basically so just looking at the content video owners manual.

Devin Sooley: Yeah, basically right, It's just looking at it in my mind, differently than what has been done before, and providing value to people who want to follow automotive, more so than just Making content that is here's a car, here's a price that we've seen Forever it's, let's make it stop aiming.

Devin Sooley: That's, yeah, let's give a value is my my thing and same with Norris page. I give people value so I try to give them hints of how to do photography, i give them angles, i give them what Norris is and car fixing stuff. I'm not mechanically inclined, so I'm learning as I go and I try to do that with his channels. Well, to give that value kind of a thing, and also don't try to fake it. I'm just a guy who started a random Instagram. I'm a guy who just was doing neighbor architecture And now I'm doing automotive marketing. I don't try to I'm like.

Michael Cirillo: I'm like I know, norris, you know, I mean like you made your vehicle such a character that you're talking like we're talking about a buddy now.

Kyle Mountsier: Yeah, he's like his channel Yeah.

Paul J Daly: I am The comments, really yeah.

Devin Sooley: My family or my friends might say Norris. Everybody knows who I'm talking about. It's like So funny.

Michael Cirillo: Norris. That also feeds into the like growth of it and why people buy into it. Because it took us all of a minute and a half and we're thinking of Norris as The family that's.

Devin Sooley: That's the hope. He's a little part of the family. He's a little buddy little, but how much?

Kyle Mountsier: how? what are you doing like right now?

Speaker 2: because obviously you, yeah, we got questions about Norris Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: I'm gonna. I'm gonna turn it because obviously you're new with this group, with capital, and you have done this really cool thing with the with the dot, like little vlog series. But like, how are you gonna start to connect some of the things you're doing with Norris To the ground on like yeah, i'm still calling him Norris, right Your Instagram account? Yeah that's not really yours, it's some car.

Paul J Daly: Yeah, but how are you got a title?

Kyle Mountsier: Yeah, How are you gonna take that, the learnings, and like the experience and how you do that in your own world Into? okay, now I've got a dealer group that has a personality that has a lot of cars like how are you gonna?

Devin Sooley: What's the plan? so the plan really is. I use Norris as a what works, what doesn't work? Um, because there's no pressure there. If, if I plan to do something there and it doesn't work out, well, just brush it off and move on to the next thing. And I know not to use that, probably in the dealer group where it's a little bit More pressure. You know, time is money kind of a thing.

Devin Sooley: Lucky enough, capital owns the mini dealership here in St John's and in Newfoundland the only one. So really I'm taking What I know about mini owners already with the classic page that I have and moving it over. What do they want to see in the new page? and actually I've been able to take a couple of new minis home on the weekend and done some Content. You've probably seen recently on Norse's page with the new mini versus the old.

Devin Sooley: I'm also transitioning that over to their pages as well new versus old and also just the shots I have had in certain locations with minis and stuff like that and what worked and what was haven't worked, tagging some of the bigger mini pages that just show off minis and in cool locations. So I'm taking minis out and adding that in. So really the dealership mini page. Here is gonna be my, my Starting channel, where I'm just comfortable with that, and then I'm gonna trickle it up after the other channels. I definitely see a struggle with some of the channels because there's not a big following, say, for Misha Bishi as a as a whole, but some of the content there makes a lancer.

Devin Sooley: So yeah, and for example, just yesterday I just finished shooting all our tick-tock content that I have for this group. So five days straight of consistent content That will be posted for the next 24 weeks and then I'll reset and do another 24 weeks of content, but it automatically posts itself up and it's just consistent content that I find Works. Consistent, good quality content is the key and that's what Norse's page It's been three years in the making of posting every day, if not every second day, consistently. That's the trick.

Kyle Mountsier: Yeah it, everybody wants to be 16,000 followers. In like three months They're like yeah, we got a plan will be there in three months. They see these like but you're like no, i put in the work. Yeah, three years.

Devin Sooley: Yeah, it was a lot of work And it's been consistent. Three years posting you were every day, every second day, the same quality content. So here in Newfoundland we only get like five months of nice weather and really only about four months of driving weather For Norse and in those four months I am just pumping content. I like out shooting to 300 photos every time I'm out for a drive, shooting real, shooting video content and just Banking that for Use throughout the year. So I'm still posting stuff from 2021, 2022 and now I'll have 2023 stuff, but I'm still reposting stuff that I just so smart.

Paul J Daly: Yeah, sounds like a lot of work Sounds like hard work There's like this old album and it was called everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.

Speaker 2: Wedding invites.

Paul J Daly: Little bow tie would look good on Norris. We need to find him. All right, who's Norris's counterpart? It's gonna be like something real fancy, like a like a Range Rover Valar like Norris.

Devin Sooley: My dream vehicle is a Jaguar e-type, so maybe that can be like his. It's his future rod maybe, but I don't know Absolutely.

Kyle Mountsier: Go man.

Paul J Daly: Well dang.

Kyle Mountsier: They never go like we think we're gonna go. They're gonna Never goes the same way. It's like it thought we were gonna talk about a talk about a tour and we got Norris becoming like a human as a part.

Devin Sooley: Yeah, i see the critical piece, all of it because you know that is kind of you know important and support into the group kind of thing.

Kyle Mountsier: Yeah.

Devin Sooley: I'm still editing a video now. Before I hopped on here, I was still editing it. I'm only about halfway through. I'm thinking it's gonna be about an hour long documentary based on the 500 gigs of video footage I have alone.

Kyle Mountsier: Yeah, and I think hey, when you release that, you have to let us know because we'll push it.

Devin Sooley: Our plan is to release it in episodes, probably five to six mini episodes, ten minutes or so each, and then do the full video post as well And then repurpose those mini episodes as well, just to gain that traction back and kind of saying like that So that's the plan. Hopefully, i'm hoping, by the end of next month It will be ready, polished and out in market at least. But so far it looks pretty fun and cool and I'm enjoying editing it at least and reliving the three days of craziness and charging and all that. And the fun fact actually is that charging wasn't bad and From Halifax St John's, 2000 kilometers all we driven cost us about $91. I think, if I look at it, canadian just say $91.

Devin Sooley: Yeah, I'm probably Canadian to yeah.

Michael Cirillo: Man we are. We love being able to hang out with you. This did not go. I mean our best to Norris for sure. I mean hope he's well. But It's super cool to see you being able to kind of like spread your wings and bring dealerships, especially your dealer group in Canada, to new heights, doing something super creative. Hopefully others catch wind of what you got going on. We can't wait to see the docu series and certainly excited that you got to hang out with us today.

Devin Sooley: Thank you for having me on. That's great, and I gained three more followers, i think, on Norris's page. that's great.

Michael Cirillo: You did, you did three.

Paul J Daly: I'm not quite sure who he interviewed. Was it? was it Devon? Was it Norris? Like what are we even talking about on the way out of?

Kyle Mountsier: this. We actually interviewed Norris's alter ego. Norris was the star of the show.

Michael Cirillo: It sounds like his PR agent. At first, because of his accent, i thought he was saying Norris, because there's a lot of Viking history in Newfoundland Right, that's what I thought, yeah.

Speaker 2: I was like oh.

Devin Sooley: Norris And he's like yeah, it's a mini.

Michael Cirillo: what is it? What did he say? It was a 1969 mini. Yeah, mini Mini Cougar, yeah.

Paul J Daly: And so I think this whole thing right. It just punctuates the fact that media and marketing and branding are nothing like they were 15 years ago. The ability to tie together in, like a personal interest or just something that the general public thinks is fun or cool, with relevant things that are happening today right, the EV transition And then I mean he's able to tie at another level because there's a mini dealer involved as well right. So the idea that you can pull all these things together and it's all okay right. There's no one like policing the brand guidelines so tightly that this can't happen, because that's exactly what happens when you try to police brand guidelines too tightly. None of this happens.

Kyle Mountsier: I also still cannot get over the fact, like it just blows my mind, that they did a docu series of an EV for 2000 kilometers through Canada, like that I mean. I can't show me, another person that's done that.

Paul J Daly: Like I kind of got an influencer hired by a brand right.

Michael Cirillo: Yeah, and, by the way, 91 Canadian dollars plus. Okay, like this is the cheapest docu series you could ever film 91 dollars in electricity Canadian dollars turns out. Today's exchange rate turns out to be only 66 bucks US plus whatever his salary for each of those days is, but it was 72 hours Like they're coming out of it with some like creative output that is probably gonna be pretty untouchable from inside a dealership.

Paul J Daly: Oh yeah, absolutely Just seeing the life cycle. All right. well, look, if that doesn't get your wheels, you gotta go check out Norris. by the way, we're all like we're his three new followers because I think all of us probably followed his account during that podcast because we couldn't help ourselves. But thanks for joining us today on behalf of Kyle Mount Sear, michael Cirillo myself. We'll see you next time.

Speaker 2: 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 esotocom. That's esotucom. 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.

Devin Sooley: Welcome to.

Paul J Daly: AutoCollapse. Why are we recording? We're rolling.

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