ONLINE CAR-BUYING COMPANY TARGETS TV
By Adnews Staff
Auto-By-Tel, a California-based Internet car-buying company, may hit Canadian airwaves with a national TV campaign some time next year. If the company does begin Canadian TV advertising, its agency, RBI Communications, Inc., may look for a media buyer in Canada, RBI partner Betsy Isroelit told Adnews yesterday. Auto-By-Tel opened in Canada this past summer. To use the service, customers log on to its Web site. The site encourages potential car buyers to first educate themselves about car prices by providing links to four major auto information services. Once they know what they should be paying for a car, customers fill out a request form with an exact description of the vehicle theyÕre looking for. They then send the request form over the Internet. The form gets picked up by both Auto-By-Tel and the nearest car dealer in the Auto-By-Tel network providing the vehicle model requested. The dealer gets back to the customer with a no haggle price and the customer can decide whether they want to go ahead and buy the car. The Auto-By-Tel network has over 1,500 dealers in North America. So far, its only Canadian advertising has been a national print campaign that ran in automotive trade magazines in the summer. In the U.S., the company is being promoted by a print and TV campaign. It will make a big splash in the new year with a 30-second, animated spot set to run during the Super Bowl. Using a voice-over by Leonard Nimoy, the ad will take a shot at traditional car-buying methods and tout the Auto-By-Tel process