Latest / Auto Collabs / Outcomes vs Attribution: We're Measuring The Wrong Thing with Michael Kraut

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Outcomes vs Attribution: We're Measuring The Wrong Thing with Michael Kraut · Auto Collabs

• 0:00
  I could not be any more excited about this episode. [upbeat music] This is Auto Collabs. This is my jealous face.
• 0:12
  You should be so jealous because Nathan and Spencer and I, we set up the studio here in Syracuse. We got the chairs, we got the backdrop, the paint, we have the flowers, we have the glasses of water. Unbelievable.
• 0:24
  And Michael K- [laughs] Michael Kraut came and visited us in person, in studio, and we were able to sit down and have a face-to-face live conversation. It was amazing. I could've gone for an hour.
• 0:37
  20 minutes went by so fast. I'm purely jealous. I want to fly to Syracuse to the studio all the time. I think that being in person with people is so critical. That's why we have events like ASOTU CON.
• 0:49
  That's why we love going to all the industry events, because that critical mass of, like, being with people, especially for those of us that aren't in dealerships every day, is so important. Mm-hmm.
• 0:58
  Um, so- We're never go- I'll tell you what, though. I'll tell you, I'll put this flag in the ground right now. Never going back.
• 1:02
  We're building out more studio sets in the studio, more podcast sets, and we are gonna invite more dealers and industry partners and industry leaders to Syracuse, white glove them right from the airport.
• 1:13
  We have hospitality suites already built into the studios. Oh, you're standing up expectations. It's, uh, yeah. People are gonna be coming. I-- Kyle, they call this manifesting. Manifesting. If you can't- Manifesting...
• 1:22
  I can't. Until I say I want a Ferrari, I'll never have a Ferrari. Oh, my goodness. I don't, I don't want a Ferrari, by the way. But we already have a studio. We already have the chairs.
• 1:30
  We already have Michael Kraut, who came into Syracuse to have a conversation, so I'm not manifesting. It's happening. We hope you enjoy this conversation with myself and Michael Kraut in person.
• 1:40
  Michael's with Experian, by the way. We didn't say that yet. About what's going on with all these connected TVs and what's gonna be the future of how we watch stuff. Check it out.
• 1:48
  [upbeat music] Well, Michael, thank you so much for joining us today. It's great to be here. This is amazing. You are literally the first in-studio guest- I feel honored [laughs]... on an Auto Collabs episode ever.
• 2:01
  I feel honored. [laughs] Yeah, you know. You walked by- It's great... you saw the studio, you're like, "Wait, is this for us?" This is it. Yeah, it's for us. This is it. You came and visited us in the studio.
• 2:07
  This is, this is great. And the first of many. We're gonna get your picture, we need you to sign it. I'm gonna sign it. Put the frame on the wall. I'll put it up there, right. And then next will be, like, Tony Danza.
• 2:13
  [laughs] Right? And all the ones you see at, like, the cheese steak places in Philly. Yeah, exactly.
• 2:17
  And it's funny, we looked at the wall color we decided to paint for this episode, and I came in and I was like, "Well, I'm the one that picked the color." Uh-huh.
• 2:23
  And then I just came in and I was like, "It looks awful lot like Eagles green, doesn't it?" Yeah, it is. But, uh- I didn't do that on purpose. The orange chairs throw it off. Uh, well, are you Giant or Bills? Eagles.
• 2:33
  You're Eagles? I grew up in Philly. Oh, gosh. Yeah, I'm sorry. It was a birthright. Like, I had no choice. Yeah. Oh, gosh. You know? But, you know, my, my sister married a Giants fan. Uh, by the way, this is Eagle.
• 2:43
  This is total Eagles. Not according to Sherman Williams. Okay. But yeah. [laughs] Great. [laughs] So funny. Um, look, when, when did we meet or or our paths cross for the first time? We path, our paths crossed
• 2:57
  somewhere in the mid 2000s. You were still doing your refurbishing business, I believe. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And Alex Better brought you into a Cars.com sale summit. Yeah, which is wild. I love that.
• 3:10
  Which is, which was probably one of those where it was snowing in Syracuse, and it was really snowing in Chicago. It was, it was cold in Chicago. It was cold in Chicago. Yeah. In the winter, go for it, yeah.
• 3:21
  And I had a, like, I just remember meeting, like- Yeah... you started to become on the scene. Yeah. And I don't remember the messaging, but it was, whatever you talked about was really perfect.
• 3:30
  Oh, I was, uh, if, if I remember correctly, that was when I, I started by talking about the, the need to adapt and change. Yes.
• 3:37
  And I talked about Circuit City and how they became CarMax, which at the time wasn't a story that a lot of people knew. Right. 'Cause it was a big reveal moment- That's right... and it was like, ah.
• 3:45
  I heard it in the room, like, "Oh, there, that's where CarMax came from?" That's it. And then I ta- actually talked a lot about LinkedIn and how- Oh, that's right...
• 3:52
  and, and I talked about LinkedIn back then, and just saying that, "Hey, there's a lot of opportunity on the table for you to organically build LinkedIn traffic." Sure.
• 3:58
  And isn't it kind of ironic that you bring the story up? Because literally in the last 120 days, that has disappeared from LinkedIn, organic reach. Really? Oh, yeah.
• 4:07
  And if you talk to people who post a lot on LinkedIn, you realize organic reach has been cut probably- Really cut down. I know... way. I've, I've noticed it, but not until you just said it.
• 4:15
  And like, now one of my regrets is that I didn't lean in five times as hard- Five times, honestly... while I was delivering that message, 'cause everyone, you know, I'm doing something. Right.
• 4:21
  I would've went five times as hard. And that, but that's what it's like in this, in this world of constant change and marketing and data.
• 4:28
  Like, opportunity, whatever you're doing today is not what you're going to be doing- 100%... in two years from now, one year from now, sometimes six months from now. Yeah.
• 4:36
  And so that's one of the things that, you know, as we talk about marketing and data and how dealers deploy it, and how we even as professionals trying to get our message out there- Right...
• 4:44
  how are we going to deploy in a good way? I, one thing that we've started to notice, um, when I started at Experian and we were building out our data for advertising practice,
• 4:58
  there really were two or three fishes in, that you could play, oceans that you could play with, right? Right, right. It was sort of like a trade desk and- Mm-hmm... Oracle and LiveRamp.
• 5:08
  I'm ma- using those as, as examples. The w- the places we have our data today are in so many different places. Yeah. And y- when we get, say, usage reports,
• 5:21
  now you're seeing names that you, you, you'd never even heard of. Right. I always make fun of Kyle because Kyle knows them all. Yeah. [laughs] And he's just ripping off these names as, like, "What is that?
• 5:31
  What is that word?" And, and what- "It's not even a word"... what's, what's even more bizarre is you start seeing names that you don't know, and then all of a sudden you're seeing Yahoo showing up as a player. Right.
• 5:40
  You're like, "Excuse me, this is my playground." Like, where, where did Yahoo- "This is my sandbox." Right. Where did, where- "You stay over there."... where did Yahoo come from? Yeah.
• 5:47
  And now in, in, in my little, our data for advertising world, we're seeing obviously Amazon is taking their share. Major.
• 5:55
  And it's companies like yourselves that have marketing or, or, or a tier one holding company agencies that are looking for-Different types of scale- Mm-hmm... different types of audiences.
• 6:08
  And it's, it's, it's sort of very hard to, i- i- from a management perspective, justify all these places what we have to be, but we have to be everywhere because I don't know where you're gonna come up with a really interesting social- [laughs]...
• 6:23
  activation next. It might be the ne- the newest thing that- Yeah... we're not paying attention to. Yeah.
• 6:28
  So all these names are always coming up with us, and I'm like, we started with, like, three platforms, and now we have things from... You know, our data's at NBCU, and Disney, and Trade Desk, and Amazon. Yeah.
• 6:41
  It's all over the place. So, uh, you know that no dealer operates their tech stack the same- Exactly... which is an additional layer that always makes it complicated.
• 6:50
  Not only is every dealer different, but every, the understanding even of very similar dealers- Yeah... and their, you know, appetite for tech or even ability to understand- Yeah...
• 6:59
  probably puts you much more in the seat of, like, "I need to be a guide," to just, like, how do I, how do I bring it to the lowest common denominator, in simple terms- Yeah...
• 7:08
  that helps bring some simplicity to the complexity you were just talking about? It's, it's really hard.
• 7:15
  That's why, you know, we work with, you know, some of the bigger tier one agencies and some of the big dealer agencies as well. And we expect them to kind of understand, uh, how to translate a lot of that stuff. Mm-hmm.
• 7:29
  But we have to understand it ourselves because we have to tell our, these agencies, like, "Hey, if you're looking for our audiences, they are in these specific destinations." But the complexity,
• 7:43
  I, I sort of feel bad for someone that's been traditionally buying media in the traditional format- Yeah... and all of a sudden they're like, "You mean there's no radio?" I'm like, "No, no, there's no radio." Yeah.
• 7:56
  [laughs] There's podcasts. Yeah. [laughs] And that's about as personal and- But the good news is I know who's listening to the podcast. You know who's listening to the podcast. Right.
• 8:04
  You tell me who's listening to the radio. Probably, I was like, "Oh, we don't need to put the probably in there anymore." Right. You c- And the same thing is happening in the TV space.
• 8:15
  Um, uh, being more of an OG TV person, I do think that there's gonna be this shift sort of back to cable television because- Tell me about that...
• 8:25
  the amount of, uh, streaming and distribution places that are going- I- It's just getting more complex. It's getting more complex, so I'm spending more mon- It's, it really, you know- Exactly...
• 8:35
  now you bring that up, you know, we've, Kyle and I talk about this sometime about the level, like, now how much are we spending a month to get our programming? Probably more than cable, but we don't really know.
• 8:44
  But you don't know. Because, like, my five-year-old's like, "I wanna watch this movie," and I'm like, "Okay."
• 8:49
  So y- I, I have used Apple TV, so I go on Apple TV, and I search the movie, and then, uh, I've to, like, figure out how we're gonna watch it. And oftentimes that's, "I guess we're gonna subscribe to Peacock for a month."
• 9:01
  Right? Because you don't know- That's exactly what's gonna happen... right, and that's what's happening. It happens every- Yes... every day in my house. And we've, we've heard this cord-cutting piece.
• 9:09
  Now you're gonna see this shift at some point- To back to cable... and it's, it's gonna happen when the large masses, the NBCUs, the Disneys- Mm-hmm...
• 9:19
  are wanna start take- taking things more through the streaming channels. Mm-hmm. And then on a Sunday afternoon, you're not gonna know where, you know, we're, we're g- we're in baseball season right now.
• 9:30
  We're moving into football season. Hoops are gonna start soon. Mm-hmm. Do you gonna, are you gonna remember that the Yankees are on Amazon, and, you know, you wanna watch, uh, Man U soccer on NBC Peacock? Mm-hmm.
• 9:43
  And you're gonna be flipping and, and going back and forth- Right... but you really can't 'cause you gotta go d- Yeah, you have to back out of the program...
• 9:48
  at some point someone's gonna just say, you know, "Give me my Xfinity cl-," you know, click. Interesting. I, I think that's gonna happen because you're not gonna write it down. N- no, ever.
• 9:58
  And, you know, we, we grew up in a world with, you know, going way back, like, a TV Guide. TV Guide, baby. Right?
• 10:05
  Yes, I remember that, the little- And, and as a, as- Some of our audience never picked up a TV Guide They never, they never saw- Reminds me of grandma's house, actually. Exactly. It was always on the table.
• 10:13
  It was always on t- on the table. But, you know, as, as someone, you know, once the, you know, we saw it with the Olympics, like, that was really hard to find. Mm-hmm.
• 10:24
  But sports usually, it's, it's the most important part of the media landscape right now. Uh, it's got sight, sound, motion, and it's live.
• 10:32
  Now I'm thinking, my mind al- always goes these days whenever I'm presented with a problem, my mind immediately goes, "How is AI gonna solve this problem?" Right?
• 10:40
  Because, because you think, well, you think about it, and, uh, we haven't really seen AI tools overlaid into viewing experiences yet. Correct. Right?
• 10:47
  But the, the reality is, when you say someone's gonna fix it, someone's gonna make a way for me to be like, "Hey, I wanna watch the Eagles, the Yankees, Manchester on Sunday. Show it to me." Show it to me.
• 10:59
  And it's gonna say, "Here's how you see it. Uh, do you want me to make..." Right? Like, that is probably where we're going. Probably. But- And I, and I think that what's gonna happen is, I mean, only because
• 11:11
  this is the way media works- [laughs]... you're gonna use an AI agent to do that. Yep. Right? Mm-hmm. N- I'll gamble it, 9 times out of 10, there's gonna be advertising in there as well. For sure. Right?
• 11:24
  And that's kind of the next, next sort of, uh, we'll call it those, those AI agent plays or- Yeah... you know, it's gonna happen. Yeah.
• 11:34
  But I do think that, you know, knowing, back to your original point, the beauty of a podcast, the beauty of streaming is you know, you're, you're informed on identity. Yeah.
• 11:46
  And I think, you know, with a lot of the services that, that we might provide, en- enrichment, uh, even data hygiene, dealers specifically have to really, uh, know their data.
• 11:58
  They have to know their customers better than they used to. Well, what do you think... It's, you know, funny that we're talking about this.
• 12:02
  I'm just thinking, Nielsen's been blowing up my phone for the last- Yes, they have... three weeks. Yeah. 'Cause they sent me 10 bucks in an envelope. Yep. And my son was like, "What? Somebody sent you cash?"
• 12:09
  I was like, "Well, first of all, it used to be two bucks," right? Right. And then you'd fill out the thing, they'd send you another three. Send you another three bucks. Right? Yep.
• 12:15
  And so they sent me a $10 bill in an envelope.And no, I'll be like, "Here you go. We're gonna call you." Right. And I really wanna be a part of it because I'm just curious. For sure.
• 12:22
  I'm just curious on what they're doing and what they're asking, but I'm, every time they call, it comes across as Nielsen, and I don't say stop calling, 'cause I wanna do it. 'Cause you wanna tr- you wanna try.
• 12:29
  What do you think, what do you think, uh, all these sources of data, like you're saying, it's getting more complicated. Yeah.
• 12:35
  What do you think is the biggest misconception that dealers have about why the type of data that they're using and overlaying matters so much? Well- 'Cause everybody says- Yeah... we have the best data.
• 12:45
  Everybody says it. Well, the, the best data, you know, specifically for dealers is gonna be everything that's in your CRM and your DMS system. That, that's, that's your core. Yeah.
• 12:56
  If, if you have people p- entering that in improperly- You're gonna, you're-... that's not great... yeah, you're messing up from the beginning.
• 13:03
  You know, you're gonna keep mar- merchandising or marketing to me when I already sold that 2015- Yeah... Land Rover blah, blah, blah, right? Yeah. It's like- Starting a song with an out of tune guitar. Yeah.
• 13:13
  It's never gonna sound good. It, it's never gonna sound good. Yeah.
• 13:15
  So I think, and, and it's a, it's a very com- it's, it's not as simple as people make it, but if they could get a good, um, snapshot of those consumers that are their mos- most lo- loyal customers, they should be fishing for more of those people that look like that.
• 13:32
  Mm-hmm. And I think that's where the, the good data hygiene and cleansing, uh, methods make the most sense for dealers. Mm-hmm. Like, you can't go outside, that far outside of your- Yeah... your market area. Yeah.
• 13:47
  But you should be mining in that area for a variety of things, and I, I think, like, t- in today's world, we're gonna have a, a window where service is gonna be critical for dealers.
• 13:59
  Uh, with affordability so high- Mm-hmm... uh, people are holding onto cars. They're servicing those cars a lot longer.
• 14:06
  That being said, they're also not in market to buy cars, so if you have invested in facilities and have anywhere from 10 to 20 bays, you, you wanna keep those busy, so all of a sudden, hey, how could I market in my marketplace to people that have vehicles that I can service?
• 14:25
  Mm-hmm.
• 14:26
  Um, those are the s- those are the sort of things that, where if you have a good understanding of your loyal customers, of your base of cus- of your base of, uh, car owners in your marketplace, boy, that's a, that's an advantage.
• 14:41
  Mm-hmm. The, the, it's not any, everyone can't just do this. It's a commitment. It's not easy.
• 14:48
  Um, we're working with lots of large dealer groups and lots of, like, marketing and CRM related agencies that are trying to do this for dealers. Yeah, no, we're in the middle of, uh- It's hard...
• 14:58
  as the agency side of the business, it's like everyone's trying new things right now. Yeah. Which is really encouraging. Yeah. But there's no prescription to give people. That's the hard part.
• 15:07
  I can't say this, then this, then this. Yeah. Put these three things together- And it's gonna work... because you're starting in a different place than they're starting, than they're starting- Absolutely...
• 15:14
  than they're starting. Absolutely. And it's a, also, like, I, we've, we've tried to identify specific pockets of data that we could provide because we have, uh, really good automotive data. Mm-hmm.
• 15:28
  We have ownership data. Mm-hmm. We have consumer data. We have some credit data.
• 15:31
  Like, when you put it together, we could kinda stitch together a really good clientele in your marketplace that you're not touching right now. Mm-hmm. But there's, there's no, it's not a secret formula.
• 15:43
  It's still hard to do. Yeah. And I think, you know, no l- no less than, you know, you've heard dealers say, "All right, I'm not looking at 30 days o- of sales only. I'll look at a quarter."
• 15:53
  Well, they always go back to 30 days. [laughs] How did I do this m- right? So true.
• 15:56
  And this is something that it takes a little bit of time, and it's not as prescriptive as dropping, you know, an ad on your local TV station on, you know, on f- Saturday night or something like that, or I- arguably Friday night, where people are in front of the TV.
• 16:15
  First of all, they're not even in front of that TV anymore. That's right. [laughs] Right. That's half the- It is... half the battle is finding where those customers are.
• 16:21
  Where they, where are they gonna be paying attention? Yeah. So if you were to kind of break it down to a metric, what would be the most important metric that dealers should be paying attention to? There's a,
• 16:35
  there's a thread that's happening. I'll, uh, I'll kinda take you back to what I've, what I've watched. And at Experian, we have our automotive group. We also have marketing services. Um,
• 16:48
  we've seen the retail media network. Those are the Amazons, the Walmarts, the Targets. Yeah. Um, they've become very outcome based. So if you do advertising, if you're a customer of Walmart- Mm-hmm...
• 17:03
  and you do advertising on Walmart, they actually could tell you, because they have barcodes and they have God knows how many stores, what kind of lift you've gotten. Mm-hmm. So this outcome based marketing,
• 17:16
  uh, is, is starting to seep into other industries. Automotive is being one of them. Mm-hmm. So at some level, you're gonna have to look at general outcomes in your marketplace. Right. Lifts, not direct attribution.
• 17:33
  Exactly. Right? And that's the big shift because- That's the big shift...
• 17:35
  last click attribution was like this, this thing that we were chasing that we could have sworn we saw its tail as we're chasing it over the horizon. I think that's it. I think that, that caused it.
• 17:43
  And then when we got over the horizon, we were like, "Oh, there's, like, 50 unicorns over here, and I don't know which one just blessed me." I don't know which one did it. Yeah.
• 17:49
  It's just important for you to be in s- you know, there's, I think people or dealers and their agencies, um, don't realize that there's a, there's a limited amount of time that people care about advertising- Mm-hmm...
• 18:04
  or are in front of that advertising. You have to be at, at different vary, very, you know, times. Yeah, right. What's the life cycle of the purchase consideration? Life cycle. Exactly. Right.
• 18:13
  And what we're s- so kind of back to your question, I think there has to be some sort of outcomes- Mm-hmm... that can be measuredThat dealerships have to, and it's not in- So what are, what are some of the outcomes?
• 18:27
  Like, what are the, what do you, how do you think about lift? How should a dealer think about lift? I think right now we've, we've started to see a lot of, um, if you're looking for service- Mm-hmm...
• 18:37
  for instance, you could start- It's probably much easier to measure service, right? It's much easier to measure. Because it's like a more immediate thing. It's more immediate.
• 18:45
  It, it's sustainable for a couple of weeks, and you could just look at your ROs- Yeah... and you could see if, if you're getting some- Year over years, trending quarter over quarter... trending quarter over quarter.
• 18:54
  New cars- Seasonally adjusted. Seasonally adjusted. Car sales, yeah, there's only a handful of companies that could actually do it, but- There's a lot of variables... there's a lot of variables.
• 19:03
  What, what are the, what are the, what are the deals being run? What are the deals being run? What are the tariffs? What are the incentives? Like, you know. Yeah, we're doing a, um- Inventory levels...
• 19:10
  we're doing a workshop at our sales summit in September, and a lot of the things that we're talking about, you know, the dealer hears that they're gonna heavy up on a specific make and model. Mm-hmm.
• 19:21
  It could be on air TV, it could be on radio, could be on podcasts, whatever it, whatever they're doing. Yeah. Um, you can't measure it like, uh, a day to day to day.
• 19:32
  You gotta look at it a little longer, but- It's so hard to do in this business... but you're going to want to look at that. So hard to do in this business. Really hard.
• 19:39
  Because it's a 30-day cycle, and- In the, in the mind of the advertiser. It's not a 30-day cycle in consumers. That's right. I mean, and I think that the pressure even mounts the larger the group gets.
• 19:50
  Well, I don't know. There's like this... I feel like smaller stores, smaller groups tend to be, like, really watching 30 days. Yes.
• 19:58
  And then you get to this middle size, where I feel like sometimes you can earn more latitude, where they're, they're rolling out 90 days- Yeah... 120, six months. Yeah.
• 20:08
  And they're saying, "Okay, we're gonna try to campaign to overall change these numbers." And then you get to the publics, and if anything takes longer than 60 days, or between, you have, like- Right...
• 20:18
  your earnings report and earnings report, that's the only latitude you have. That's the only latitude they have. And so, like, we saw this firsthand.
• 20:23
  You know, Kyle and I were consulting with a public, and we learned really quickly in our ignorance that, like, oh, like, the leadership understands
• 20:32
  that this should probably take nine months to really work, but the leadership isn't going to get nine months. They're not gonna get nine months. It's just a reality. Yeah. They're gonna get maybe six.
• 20:41
  So I th- I think what, you know, what we're identifying is what are some signals that we could look at that will indicate- Yeah... certain things. Tell, tell me about those.
• 20:52
  So we've had, um, a lot of, we have, we, we have access to a lot of different activity that, that happens. Mm-hmm. There's a couple of companies that are doing really good jobs at measuring, say, service. Mm-hmm.
• 21:07
  You could start seeing some signals that people are doing. Like, um, what's a, a good example might be, you know, just coming in for an oil change.
• 21:18
  Someone's just not gonna do it because they s- they see the ad, but they may take action through, you know, search- Mm-hmm... and say, you know, "Oil in my area." Mm-hmm. All right? There's a signal there. Mm-hmm.
• 21:31
  If the agency is measuring all kinds of signals, they could start to build a picture. Yep. And saying, "I think this is gonna work." You're gonna start seeing... And, and a, a g- a great example now is how
• 21:44
  there's a lot more connectivity around scheduling services or scheduling an appointment- Mm-hmm... uh, to, to look at a new car, for instance, or a used car.
• 21:56
  Those are the types of signals that are embedded, we just ch- choose not to pay attention to them. Right. Measure them, consider, like, is this marketing affecting that metric- Exactly... versus...
• 22:08
  Like, 'cause that, I mean, someone scheduling an appointment is like, I feel like at that point, the marketer is like, "Now it's a sales, now it's a sales conversation." Now, now it's a sales conversation.
• 22:17
  And that's one of the problems, is when, like, we're not selling cars, so many times I actually see the sales process is broken. Yeah. The way of lead handling. Yeah. You know, like staffing properly during peak hours.
• 22:29
  And in my mind- Yeah... it's like once, once the appointment's delivered, the marketing has done its job. Yeah. Right? And I...
• 22:34
  But, you, you know, you have, uh, some of these organizations, and if you're talking to a public, you, you walk into some of these stores, they're huge. Yeah. They got 100, 150 people.
• 22:46
  There's a lot of touchpoints- Sure... in a dealership. It's, it g- that sort of goes back to sort of your, the data that you're putting in. Mm-hmm. Like, how accurate is it? You know- Mm-hmm...
• 22:56
  some guys are calling in sick. You got somebody you're pulling over. "All right, you're working the service desk today." [laughs] Yeah. Or "You're, you're handling- For sure... ups" and stuff like that.
• 23:04
  So there, it is not, um, it's not a, it's not a, a rocket sci- It's, it's a very challenging business to run. But back to your point, if you're doing the, the right, um, marketing
• 23:20
  sort of s- um, touchpoints- Mm-hmm... and what we just talked about, there's a lot of touchpoints. Mm-hmm. So don't get caught on attribution as last click attribution. Right. You're ne- you're never gonna figure it out.
• 23:31
  You're never... It, it was a fallacy when it came out. I mean, yeah. But at that time, you- Well, on the digital side, like, but back in the day, it was like, "Here's the phone number we put in that ad.
• 23:39
  If anyone calls that phone number, we know exactly where it came from." We know exactly what happens. Exactly. Yeah, but now it's like, what are all the things that make up the story of why the person reached out?
• 23:46
  Correct. Correct. So we're, at time of recording, right, we're heading into, uh, September. Yeah. And so, you know, you and I were just talking a little bit about, like, what happens now.
• 23:56
  We loop into a conference season- Yes... event season. NADA is not that far away already. Yeah. Um, what, what are we gonna be talking about at NADA? What are you gonna be talking about at NADA?
• 24:07
  Um, I th- I think we are gonna get caught up on everything in the back of the store, all the fixed op stuff. Mm-hmm. Um, I think you're hearing, obviously, it's always been a profit center for, for owners of dealerships.
• 24:22
  So, so much more controllable. It's controllable.Um, their talent there is, they wanna use that talent. Mm-hmm. Uh, especially a- all your tech talent is back there.
• 24:33
  There's also, you know, w- we really are falling into this sort of the, the cars... Whoever you speak to, any of the large data providers, unequivocally, cars are being held a lot longer. Mm-hmm.
• 24:46
  They're being built better. Mm-hmm. Uh, interestingly enough, you know, the, the one thing that is great for new cars is they're totaling more cars now than ever, because if you get into an accident- That's hard...
• 24:57
  you know, it's- Now that sensor, that thing, that calibrator- It's not even worth it... she's gone. And that's why insurance rates are up, obviously. Yep. Uh, but the affordability piece is going to be here for a while.
• 25:08
  Mm-hmm. It's not gonna ebb or, or, or change. Yeah. So- Even interest rates, if they go down, don't make that much diff- It's not as- On, on a c- it's not like a house.
• 25:17
  You buy a house that's a few thousand dollars, the interest rate matters a lot more- Correct... than if you buy a car that's $50,000. Correct, which is probably close to what the average price of a new vehicle is. Yeah.
• 25:26
  Yeah, it's 49 something. 49 something. There's that little tracker I see every day. And [laughs] yeah, and so I think, um, people that are involved in dealerships are gonna be looking at the back, at, at the fixed ops.
• 25:39
  Yeah. This is gonna be really critical. Um, if you could increase repair orders- Yeah... fantastic. You might start seeing, uh, a much more active role in marketing from the OEM parts- Mm-hmm... divisions.
• 25:55
  Um, those are big- Yeah... those are big businesses for them. I see a lot of, yeah, a lot of momentum in that area. A lot of momentum in that area.
• 26:01
  And then, you know, I d- I, one thing that, that from an advertising perspective that we noticed was there's not as many new cars coming out anymore. There's a lot of rebadges. Yeah.
• 26:13
  Uh, you know, I saw someone has a, a Ford Maverick out there, which is an F-150. It's just an electric vehicle. Yeah, that's mine. That's yours? F-150 Lightning. Yeah. Yeah. The, the white one? Yeah. Yeah, it's nice.
• 26:25
  [laughs] Um, but you're not seeing a lot of new vehicles. Like, we used to have new launches. Mm-hmm. And- Oh yeah, nonstop. Nonstop. Yeah, because I mean, they're unable to... They have to focus on efficiency. Yeah.
• 26:38
  And new, new vehicles, new lines just naturally break efficiency. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. And now with the EV challenge to keep up with the, like- You got EVs, now you got hybrids. I mean, they're- Yeah...
• 26:47
  they're changing gears constantly. Yeah. And I don't know if they have, uh, you know, I've never operated at an OEM, but you have to have a really- I do not-... big gamble... and I do not envy those- It's a big gamble...
• 26:58
  but they have a hard, hard job right now. Yeah. 'Cause, and also, like, designs are important. Yeah. I don't know how important they are because- Everything looks kinda similar now. It looks kinda similar...
• 27:08
  it's like, it's how's the tech work, right? What's, what's, what's the lease payment? What's the monthly? Exactly. You have different, different set of considerations- Yeah...
• 27:15
  with, especially with Gen Z coming into the market the way they are. Yeah, and I, I, I do think that, that Gen Z, um, owner is, is not as loyal, obvious- I mean, we've learned that.
• 27:26
  Can I ask Spencer, Spencer, are you loyal to a car brand? Definitely not. No. [laughs] He says, "Are you loyal?" He goes, "Yeah." I said, "To a car-" He's loyal to him and not the car brand. I said, "To a car brand?"
• 27:34
  He's like, "Oh, no, no, no." [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, no. And you know, I think that that's, that's a challenge for the manufacturers to build new cars. Mm-hmm. Um, people just want it to work with their tech. That's it.
• 27:47
  That, that's it. Well, look- So-... it's so much fun to have you here in Syracuse. It's great to be here. You came back, so you went to SU? I went to Syracuse. And so how long has it been since you've been in Syracuse?
• 27:56
  Quite a long time, 15, 20 years. What did you do today? Uh, let's see. I saw- You went to campus? I went to campus. I saw the Carmelo center- [laughs] Oh, yeah... uh, which was pretty impressed.
• 28:06
  It wasn't there 15 years ago. [laughs] Was not there. Those were our football fie- uh, our football fields. What did, what did you eat? I had a slice at Varsity. Okay, that's...
• 28:16
  [laughs] Um, Marshall Street's not the same, obviously. No. Yeah, it's a little different now. [laughs] It's a little different now. Uh, there wasn't Hungry Chuck's or anything like that.
• 28:23
  [laughs] Uh, or Zorba, which is now a parking lot. Yep. [laughs] Um- That's how it happens... but it was great walking around the quad. Uh, I went up to Mount Olympus, to Flint- Yeah... to see, see my old dorm.
• 28:34
  [laughs] Uh, and freshmen were moving in, and- Yeah. Oh, so-... uh, you know... it brings you right back. It brings me right back. Oh, well, thank you so much for making the trip. It was great to be here.
• 28:41
  And hanging out with us- Awesome... for a little bit and all the work you're doing. Awesome. Can't wait to hang out some more. Yes. Thanks a lot. [upbeat music] See?
• 28:50
  And this is why I never canceled my cable subscription, Paul. [laughs] Yes, you did. No. You have cable? Still have cable. Wow. Do you TiVo and stream it? Well, because down here...
• 28:59
  Yeah, because, uh, like, the cable is Xfinity- You're a bundle. Yeah... and it's, it, it, I, I actually, like, we wa- We, I never actually turn on the cable box.
• 29:08
  We watch all of our cable elements on- On your phone or device... an Apple TV. It's, it's the- Yeah... basically the same thing as all the other ones, but I just, you know, it's one payment instead of 13. I gotcha.
• 29:17
  Which is what he's arguing we're gonna go back to, which is so hilarious to me. Right back to cable.
• 29:25
  I, I know AI is, like, and I brought up in the interview, I know it's gonna play a role in this that we haven't seen anything of yet. Right.
• 29:31
  Because if you think of a frontier that hasn't really been affected by, uh, generative AI or any kind of AI, like verbal input that actually thinks about what I told it- Yeah...
• 29:41
  as opposed to just trying to translate what I said. Most of the stuff is, like, machine learning, personalization. You see Netflix- Yeah...
• 29:45
  and Apple TV always trying to refine the way that they're doing personalization, but- And e- even Apple TV doesn't know what it wants, right? Right.
• 29:50
  Tell me, if you wanna watch a show, like, my, my, my little five-year-old likes the show, the cartoon Bad Guys. Okay, where do I go to find Bad Guys?
• 29:57
  I don't know what platform it's on, so I go to Apple, and then Apple's like, "Oh, here, you can buy it." And then I buy it, and then I realize, like, oh, well I could've watched it on Peacock. [laughs] Right.
• 30:04
  It's like this fri- Perfect. Unbelievable. And so, like, it'll- It's coming. I, I think this is, this will be the next wave, and it'll be really critical for advertisers to understand how the wave comes. Mm-hmm.
• 30:16
  Because it's gonna get more hyper-personalized. You're gonna get voice input.
• 30:19
  It's not just gonna be personalization based off of history, but off of real time, and figuring out how to navigate that matrix is gonna be really interesting. Yeah.
• 30:28
  So for me, it's just gonna be like, "How can I watch Eagles highlights all the time?" Silly. [laughs] Kyle's like... Take us out, Kyle, then. Take us out. Ah, we're out of here. There you go.
• 30:37
  Hey, on behalf of Paul Jay Daly, Michael Cirillo, myself, Kyle Mountser, really glad you're hanging out with us here on Auto Collabs. We'll catch you next time.
• 30:46
  Sign up for our free and fun to read daily email for a free shot of relevant news in automotive, retail, media, and pop culture. You can get it now at asotu.com. That's A-S-O-T-U.com.
• 30:59
  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.
• 31:07
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Auto Collabs. Welcome to Auto Collabs. [laughs] Why are we recording? [laughs] Are we rolling yet? Not yet.