Lucas Bergmans’ Post

📢BREAKING NEWS📢  We're delighted to announce that MOTORS has acquired the Cazoo brand. Commenting on the acquisition, MOTORS’ CEO Barry Judge said: “We have the expertise and inventory to immediately establish Cazoo as a modern marketplace for used cars. We will build on the excitement and engagement that the Cazoo brand has already created with consumers to deliver more sales enquiries for our dealer partners.” Highlights include: Cazoo to join MOTORS’ network of sites, alongside MOTORS, Gumtree and eBay, helping dealers access more car buyers Cazoo to become a marketplace with 250,000+ listings to help buyers find their next used cars New Cazoo app to feature innovative, mobile-first strategy to enhance the car search experience Free Cazoo listings for MOTORS’ dealer partners with MultiSite packages For more details see the full press release 👉 https://lnkd.in/ez_HyiAU ___ #MOTORS #usedcars #carsearch #carlovers #motorsandcazoo

An interesting new function.....only contacts can comment..... Well, I'm not a connection so we need to do the old fashioned share! #Cazoo have been an unmitigated disaster from day one, spending other peoples money (literally) like it was going out of fashion. They bought everything they saw... Football sponsorships Snooker sponsorships Darts sponsorships Just to name a few..... Then they changed tack to buy car sharing and subscription services. One such service they bought for (I am told) a reported £75m had a mere 1500-ish monthly subscribers. So, £50,000 per contract holder. How many 'rinses' of a traditional retail customer would you need to get £50k of gross, never mind the acquisition costs of that business. They sold this in the fire sale. I am sure if I am wrong someone will correct the numbers. And then they started hoovering up physical premises, they bought (or leased) a fleet of custom built transporters and trucks, prep centres, dealerships.....nothing was out of reach. One post on LI was their recruitment Team telling people to visit their stand "for free merch!", no mention of careers, just giving stuff away! In simple terms they spunked circa £750m to get to where they are today.....nowhere! ("can we sponsor Nowhere?") Now the spin is that it has been an incredible journey (£750m down the pan, I'll fecking bet it was!!) and they have one million 'customers' a month, and the trade should immediately jump into bed with them and their incredible offering! Where they get the one million customers from beats me, its more likely one million hits on their website from people googling 'who sponsors the Bethnall Green Ladies Gin Rummy Team'! I think that as much as #Autotrader are seen to be expensive by some, they are 'expensive' for a reason! They know exactly what they are doing! So, can Cazoo pull this off and pull off the biggest resurrection since JC rolled the stone away, well......it is nearly Easter, so who knows! Time will tell 😁 Reject My Car - Cazoo aye or naw? #consumerprotection #consumeraction #automotive #disputeresolution

How many times have I told you that Cazoo would never make it for the long haul? How many? Very many, that’s how many. And so it has come to pass with the news today (6th March) that founder Alex Chesterman has given up all hope of seeing Cazoo become a global (at birth) and when that didn’t work, a UK-only market leading purveyor of used cars. Here’s the plan. Cazoo is to run a fire sale of all its stock starting today and then turn itself into a pale imitation of Autotrader as a pure-play marketplace. What could possibly go wrong? And along with turfing out the stock goes CEO Paul Whitehead, who took over the top job from Chesterman in March 2023. He was previously Cazoo’s COO since its founding. No replacement has been announced – apparently Cazoo will be run by committee. That’s should work well, shouldn’t it! And just to top it all off, Cazoo will inevitably delist from the NYSE, which it joined in 2021 as a ‘back-door johnnie’ through a SPAC (aka weapon of value destruction) deal. Be reminded that Cazoo has never, ever made a profit. Frankly, I don’t think Cazoo will survive the transition. Give me a while to bask in the glory of self-righteousness and then I’ll rake over the ashes in a future post (sorry, I never put ‘humble’ in my LinkedIn profile). PS I do have to thank Chesterman, though, for his unerring support of the world's greatest sport, #snooker, for which Cazoo has been a loyal sponsor in recent years. No maximum break for him, I'm afraid. #usedcars

Halfords reached consumers across the country with their recent Motorway Mega Rear campaign. Advertising across our fleet was a natural choice to reach frequent motorway drivers who are more likely to, 🚗 own a car (almost 97% own at least one car) ❤️ take pride in their car (they are more likely to like appreciate it when people ask them about their car) 🚘 but prefer not to do car maintenance themselves (just over half say they do little or no car maintenance themselves*). Halfords used two creatives which appeared on over a hundred vehicles at the beginning of the winter season reaching an audience of over 11.5m and delivering a total of almost 26m contacts**. 🙏 Our thanks to Halfords, Carat and Posterscope. *Source: YouGov Profiles 2023 **Source: Seiki 🚀 Daemon Brown, Christian Ridehalgh #MobileOOH #OOH #MotorwayMegaRear #Advertising #Automotive

When you think of out-of-home, chances are that large-scale billboards like those in Times Square come to mind. But one of the fun things about #OOH is the variety within the space. From outdoor billboards to place-based media, there are many opportunities to connect with audiences in the #OOH space. Some examples 👇 Traditional formats: Traditional #OOH formats have been around for decades. These usually include static imagery in a single location for a long time. Retail signage: Screens or signage displayed in gas and convenience stores, grocery stores, shopping malls, parking lots or garages. 🛒 Place-based media: Formats designed to reach customers where they spent much of their time outside the home, like office and apartment buildings, colleges and universities, movie theatres and entertainment centres, gyms, hotels, bars and restaurants and more. Public transit: Transit #OOH allows brands to engage a uniquely captive audience. You’ll find these often in subway and train stations, buses, taxis, and airports. 🚇 🚌 ✈️ Street furniture: #OOH you’ll find on benches, transit shelters, and street-side displays fall into this category, as well as bike stations, electric vehicle charging stations and other spots. Roadside: Bulletins, the large-format faces you see at the side of the road outside town to catch the sight of drivers passing by. 🛣️ And posters are also typically positioned alongside roads in cities, where drivers or pedestrians are most likely to see them. Wallscapes: These are usually painted onto the side of a building or made into a billboard produced in an unusual size, shape, or arrangement. 

Working with brands as part of my everyday job, I often think about those that have had a lasting impact on my life. Growing up, one of them was Vans. Read and find out the strategies that Vans took to grow while still maintaining its authentic identity and cultural relevance.  . Benefit from this post? Interact now—LIKE, COMMENT and SHARE it! #GXM #SimplyBetterMarketing #Branding #Marketing #MarketingStrategy #DigitalMarketing 

#Branding ideas If you are looking for running your Brand on wheels, to create Buzz and capture eyeballs, DTC Buses, Private Buses, Volvo or Luxury Buses are best option for you, we do all kind of Bus wrap and designing. Internal modification may turn it up into a running store/lounge/demo/customer experience. Luxury Bus Branding generates huge mileage running across busiest road with creative all over it. It travels with commuters, gain their attention for longer duration moving in same direction. Other than Volvo, Semi Volvo - City DTC Bus Branding are most economical and effective media than any traditional media such as Hoarding, unipole, wall wraps, pillar etc. as it runs on fixed routes well mapped with your business centres and target audience. We also do Cab Branding, Auto Branding, School Bus Branding, Buses. Call now for more details - 9871879651, or mail on radhakrishnan@trailct.com #DTCbuses #Brand #logo #promotion #advertising #marketing #promotion #campaign #Branding #business #luxury #brand #brands #brands #unipole #hoarding #outdooradvertising #ooh #mediabuying #mediaplanning #mediaplanner #consumer

BREAKING🚨So how’s the biggest deal in the powersports aftermarket going? Will it succeed? Too early to tell, it’s been a bit rocky (get it?) so far, but I have real hope. First the rocky stuff. Communications from T14 during the transition was spotty to nonexistent at first. Vendors and dealers (I advise an online retailer, so I’ve had a ringside seat) were left in the dark. Our sales tanked. Vendors I know still have no clue about their status. But unless you’ve done an acquisition of this scale, know that they are tough, I’d cut the Philly crew slack on this. What’s critical now is for Turn14 to prove on a daily basis that it “gets” powersports, and is excited about the opportunity. Authenticity derives from focus…. The sooner ALL of T14’s messaging is 100% powersports focused the better, from the dealer portal to emails, nuking the auto content will go a long way to increasing trust and sales. The good news there? I know for a fact T14 understands this and is working on it….I’d just ask to go “faster please”. Which leaves us to own brands. As some of you know, I’m evangelical when it comes to the power of own brands, both as relevant/effective customer solutions, as well as, their strategic advantage within a given market segment. At Cycle Gear we dispelled the old “white box” curse, or the notion that “house” brands could never resonate with a passionate customer base. CG, the biggest retailer in the industry is built on own brands. At Tucker I had the privledge of being responsible for the own brand portfolio, arguably one of the stoutest in distro. T14 has embraced the strategy, and that’s very good. But can they execute? Own brands is hard, it ain’t just a logo on a box. Everything a “real” brand has to do is now your job. From overall vision, market research, development, design, IP, sourcing, packaging, branding, marketing, DTC, etc, etc is all on you. Oh, and then there’s apparel, as in helmets/technical gear, that’s a whole other beast. The latter will be tough for T14, at least in the near term. T14 has retained some outstanding brand folks from Tucker, that’s huge, and smart. The key will be leadership and support. T14 hasn’t done this (own brands) before, so the learning curve will be steep. But they’ve made some good moves so far…..even with the aforementioned unforced errors. Will they win? I hope so….right now I’d say it’s 50-50 even money. So stay tuned…..

This Specsavers driver should have gone to… oh wait! I would have loved to be a fly on the wall during that awkward phone call between the driver and the office. Specsavers are known for their clever (and funny) marketing and this campaign in Ireland was no exception - having passersby and social media, in stitches. And it’s easy to see why. A Specsavers van found itself hilariously stuck on top of a bollard in Edinburgh after missing the “Caution automatic bollards in operation. No parking” sign. At first glance, it appears to be a genuine accident, with locals stopping to check the vehicle wasn’t damaged or pose any danger to anyone passing by. They were equally bamboozled and amused. But they quickly caught on… well most did. One twitter user posted “you can’t make this stuff up.” While another saying “the irony of this being a Specsavers van that’s parked on the rising bollards RIGHT NEXT TO the big red sign saying not to do exactly that is not lost on me.” The reason this campaign went so viral comes down to a few factors: 1.    It played on humour. Laughter triggers positive emotions and creates a connection. When people saw the van, they didn’t just see an advertisement, they experienced a moment of joy. This emotional response is powerful because people tend to share things that make them feel good, amplifying the stunt’s reach. 2.    Our brains are wired to notice and remember the unusual (not to mention whip out our phones and snap a shot for the ‘gram). A van hilariously stuck on a bollard catches attention because it’s not something you see every day. It creates a memorable moment that sticks in your mind (no pun intended). 3.    There’s the element of relatability. Specsavers' tagline, “Should’ve gone to Specsavers,” taps into a common human experience – making mistakes. We've all had moments of oversight or error. By playfully highlighting a mistake, Specsavers connects with their audience on a very human level. But there is something else to be considered too… For our eyes to catch a scene and automatically jump to a slogan without any mental gymnastics is NO EASY FEAT. This is branding that has worked tirelessly to embed itself into the psyche of ordinary people. This clever stunt wasn’t just a funny moment - it was a brilliant piece of marketing that reminds us of the importance of branding, and that the most effective marketing strategies are those that tap into our basic human instincts and emotions. ____ Looking to create marketing that really connects 🧠 , sticks with your audience, and makes a difference? Reach out and let's chat. #marketingconsultant #fractionalCMO #marketingstrategist #marketingpsychology #marketingmentor