Now This is Desperation: Bunny Buys a Car

My Mother is 85 years old.  A feisty 85.  She has never bought a car on her own before and the Ford was getting a little rickety so she decided she wanted to buy a Honda this time.  By my experience, Honda is pretty good about not negotiating too low–no longer.  Yes, I went in with her but she handled the conversation.  She went on the last afternoon of the quarter armed with the cost of the car.  She quickly found one she liked and said that her next stop was the Toyota dealer.  The salesman left and came back with a price that was $200 below his cost!  Now, that’s desperation pricing.  we would have paid probably $700 more than their asking price. 

Let’s look at what it took to get the price–she did her homework with the cost data, she went in at the end of the month, when the dealership was desperate for additional business so they would hit their goals.  And, she said that she was still shopping.  Three things–game, point , match.  When the senior citizens have this figured out, the car companies are toast.

A few simple question like: “have you thought about a budget for a car?” or “which Toyota are you looking at?” or “of the two brands, which do you really prefer?” would have been worth an additional $500-700 for the dealership.  When are these guys going to learn?

Oh well, Bunny is happy with her car and happy with her price–real happy.

A New Book–Value Creation: The Power of Brank Equity

 

Value Creation: The Power of Brand Equity by William Neal and Ron Strauss, 2008, Cengage Learning, Mason, Ohio.  I’m going to warn you right up front that the punch line of this book is using the author’s predictive model for improving the effectiveness of branding efforts.  Generally, you know I frown on consultants writing books where you have to use their services to get anything out of it.  Fortunately, this isn’t the case here.  It is a well written, well researched effort which ties the brand identity to not only the CEO but other constituencies in the firm–workers, customers and dealers.  I liked the way it connects brand results and satisfied customers with happy employees and draws well from the work of people like Fred Reiccheld along the way. This is both an introductory and a technical book but for those who use branding research, there is an excellent discussion of different