Marketing

Some of the hottest new vehicles revealed by automakers lately — including significant new electric vehicles — have mostly remained online. Only a few industry insiders and journalists have been able to see them up close. That changes this week with the Chicago Auto Show, which will feature highly anticipated vehicles such as the Ford

HORSESHOE BAY, Texas — Forget the boring training videos and bulleted brochures. To better acquaint its retail network with the 2021 Bronco SUV, Ford Motor Co. ditched the standard informational materials for a unique, hands-on boot camp in the mud and rocky crags of Texas Hill Country. The automaker invited representatives from each of its

Volvo plans to change the way it names its cars starting a new full-electric flagship that will debut next year. Instead of carrying over the XC90 moniker, Volvo will deviate from using letter and number combinations for its Tesla Model X rival. “This car will have a name, more like a [newborn] child,” Volvo CEO

Record-holding dealer Billy Fuccillo Sr., known for his “It’s huge!” advertising slogan and splashy marketing efforts, died June 17 at home in Sarasota, Fla. He was 65. “Known for his legendary generosity and larger-than-life personality, Billy was thoroughly committed to the communities he served and to the people who knew him as a friend, a

LOS ANGELES — Honda has chosen a forward-looking name for the battery-electric crossover that it is developing with General Motors for the 2024 model year: Prologue. The Honda crossover will use GM’s Ultium platform and batteries, but Honda will develop the vehicle’s body style and interior. The Honda-GM venture also will develop a battery-electric Acura

John Oliver says he has a great script for a car dealer to use in a commercial, and he’s willing to offer it for free. But only on the condition that the dealer signs a contract to produce and air the ad before ever reading the script. The comedian made the offer on the Sunday,

You can’t hang them on a wall, but Volvo’s Polestar brand wants customers to treat its cars like pieces of art just the same. To that end, the brand is allowing customers to buy a Polestar 1 by trading in art from their collections. “All forms of art, including paintings, sculptures, photography, installations and more

Like dealership groups everywhere, Jones Junction had to figure out how to continue attracting customers’ eyes to its available vehicles during the COVID-19 pandemic. As businesses scaled back in-person operations last year, the dealership group in Bel Air, Md., employed a strategy it had been testing since early 2018 by ramping up digital retailing at

YouTube users know the routine. Open a video, wait for the pre-roll ad, hit “skip” a few seconds into the ad if allowed, then watch the desired content. That creates a tough proposition for advertisers, which have just seconds to get consumers’ attention as they jump from video to video. But Paragon Honda in New

Tier10 ad agency set up shop in Paragon Honda’s photo studio last year to shoot a YouTube pre-roll campaign for the CR-V crossover. It had the vehicle, of course, a product specialist to run down the list of features and a ring light to add a polished aura. The only thing missing was a high-tech

Since last July, a little-known automaker in China’s southwest has dominated the world’s largest electric car market, outselling bigger players and even Tesla Inc. almost every month with a tiny, bare-bones EV that starts at just $4,500. The Hongguang Mini is the brainchild of SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co., a joint venture between SAIC Motor Corp. and

Ford Motor Co. is unveiling a compact pickup called the Maverick this week, declaring it to be “the truck you didn’t see coming.” We beg to differ. “Months of rumors, spy shots and speculation have all led to this moment,” Ford said in a statement last week. But it somehow forgot to mention that development

Convenience retailer 7-Eleven plans to put at least 500 electric vehicle fast chargers at 250 stores across the U.S. and Canada by the end of 2022. That’s up from 22 existing charging stations the chain currently operates at 14 stores in four states. The plan to install the fast chargers comes as 7-Eleven says it

When a Virginia high school was in danger of having to cancel its prom for the second year in a row because of the pandemic, the used-car dealer across the street literally rolled out the red carpet to save it. Brandon Wright, owner of Wright Way Motors, hosted the Covington High School prom in his

A Nissan dealership in Virginia sold all five Leafs on its lot for a total of $4.95 last week. The upside for the store was that each buyer also paid full price for the least popular full-size pickup in the country, the Nissan Titan. The dealership, Hart Nissan of Nova in Springfield, advertised the two

Olivier Francois has a passion for building brands. Now he gets to indulge in it even more as the marketing chief of Stellantis, which combined the nine brands of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles he knew well with five more from PSA Group. Francois, known for ambitious Super Bowl ads and a knack for blending musical acts

Professional wingsuit pilot Peter Salzmann soars over the alps in his native Austria using an electrified wingsuit by BMW i. The scene was captured for a November 2020 video to promote the automaker’s eDrive technology. An electric twin-propeller drive system, including an energy storage unit, were integrated into the front of the suit. Salzmann jumped

The electric F-150 seemed to be everywhere last week, even before Ford Motor Co. formally introduced it. President Joe Biden did hot laps on a test track in front of the White House press corps, Rachel Maddow spent a large portion of her cable TV show discussing the pickup, and on “The Tonight Show,” Jimmy

What weighs about 4.5 tons and has a big trunk in the front? If you said either an adult male Asian elephant or the 2022 GMC Hummer EV pickup, you’re correct. But only one of them can go from 0 to 60 mph in about 3 seconds. We assume an elephant can’t crab-walk, either, though

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. on Monday opened F-150 Lightning order banks for commercial owners, promising lower ownership costs for a key demographic the company hopes will help it establish early dominance in the electric pickup market. Ford said the base trim of the Lightning, focused on commercial buyers, will be called Pro. It said

The most exciting part of the Indianapolis 500, the nail-biting dash to the finish line, stands to get even more tension-filled in 2023 thanks to a rare instance where a technology created for everyday family cars — the gasoline-electric hybrid powertrain — migrates to the track. From paddle shifters to active suspension systems, the list

Olivier Francois has a passion for building brands. Now he gets to indulge in it even more as the marketing chief of Stellantis, which combined the nine brands of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles he knew well with five more from PSA Group. Francois, known for ambitious Super Bowl ads and a knack for blending musical acts

Toyota Motor Corp. plans to sponsor more than 15,000 customers who live in California and own certain Prius Prime or RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrids to join a program that offsets any carbon generated from those vehicles’ charging with renewable energy. The automaker calls its new program Clean Assist, and is providing it at no cost

From the first auto show in New York nearly 121 years ago, millions of American vehicle shoppers have flocked to their local car show each year to be awed by the latest and greatest the industry has to offer. From electric headlights and heaters to four-wheel drive and front-wheel drive, auto shows are the places

A U-turn by Tesla Inc. on Bitcoin last week sent the cryptocurrency market plunging by hundreds of billions of dollars and caused some loyalists to change their tune against CEO Elon Musk. Musk cited concerns about “rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal,” in a Twitter post saying Tesla

VinFast, a Vietnamese automaker that aims to start selling electric vehicles in the U.S. next year, reported one of its customers to the police. His supposed crime? Complaining about quality problems with his car on YouTube. VinFast, in a statement last week, said the customer, Tran Van Hoang, created “untrue content” about his VinFast Lux

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. on Monday confirmed its upcoming battery-electric pickup will be called the F-150 Lightning, and it will be unveiled at its world headquarters in Dearborn, Mich., on May 19. The automaker said the reveal will be broadcast live across Ford’s social media channels and will be shown in New York’s Times

When former Chrysler Corp. President Bob Lutz intentionally drove the first Jeep Grand Cherokee through a plate-glass window at the 1992 Detroit auto show, the media stunt not only generated global headlines but also marked a new era. Car shows were nearly a century old at the time, but the Chrysler marketing team helped push

Mercedes-Benz is merging its global marketing and communications activities into one unit under the leadership of Bettina Fetzer, the automaker’s marketing boss. The aim of the realignment is to have a uniform global presence for the Mercedes corporate brand and its product brands, the automaker said in a statement. A Mercedes spokesperson said the auto

Hyundai Motor America has hired Culture Brands to serve as its African American agency of record, as the automaker seeks to improve its standing with Black buyers. The Maryland-based shop claimed the account with a multi-year contract after a competitive review that involved five agencies. The hiring represents the first time Hyundai has partnered with