Carvana Still Has A Surprise, TikTok In The Stores, Coke Let’s Consumers Create

‍SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly

Paul Daly  00:28

Good morning, everybody. It's Thursday already Thursday. Oh, so rockin off three hours of sleep from that baby life what we're talking about Carvana still surprising everybody tick tock in stores and coke letting consumers create their and their second cup of coffee

Kyle Mountsier  00:48

already, let's go. Second, this is three Come on. Now they like UPS. But that's, you know,

Paul Daly  00:55

it's still you know, I tell people, you know, when they're about to have a baby, they're like, Well, you know, you know, I'm like, Well, look, there's a time when you go back to wishing your kids had like the baby problems like those are the reasons you're up at night because they get progressively more complicated, right? At least I'm still at a place where all of my kids like sleep under my roof every night. When that's not the case. It's going to be a new experience. Straight.

Kyle Mountsier  01:21

Man, it's every year that experiences just adjust and change. I feel like parenting preps me more for business than like anything else in life. You're like, if I can handle that kid throwing a tantrum? That kid asked me a question about you know, Mars and that kid dump in a bucket. I can handle anything. I'm ready to go

Paul Daly  01:44

at the same time. Oh, man, we got a lot of fun stuff coming up asoto edge. Our next webinar with our friends at car review is gonna be driving customer loyalty through service. I think today we're releasing a really funny trailer. If you want to see Kyle, get frustrated. You got the beginning of a video? Yeah, watch us on LinkedIn, follow us on LinkedIn, you're gonna see this. It's gonna be Wednesday, March 29. Next week at 2pm. So make sure you sign up for us, please join us, we're gonna have a blast. We're trying to bring the hype back to webinars because they should be hype. So this is gonna be a lot of fun. We're gonna talk about a lot of great stuff and learn a lot of things. In the meantime, we're also just two weeks away from two weeks away from last night. Wow. Right? Oh, so we're live tonight, coming to Arlington, Texas, April 5 evening of April 5. So if you're in the Greater Dallas area, or if you can get to Dallas, it's easy to get to please join us. Tickets are on sale, you can get them at a soul to x.com we're releasing speakers little by little have a few more to release. And we're bringing the band we're bringing the fun, we're bringing the learning, we got some special swag, a unique step and repeat. And, you know, you know how we do it. So we hope you can join us we hope to meet some new people in Arlington, right? That's why we're going to different cities, we're

Kyle Mountsier  02:57

gonna meet a whole bunch of new people. That's what I'm calling. I mean, we're at least just so you know, we're gonna be in three dealerships meeting a whole bunch of wonderful people. And that's always fun. Like I can spend all day in dealerships. It's just good times.

Paul Daly  03:09

So it makes it's a happy place. And we didn't talk about this a lot, but we're actually filming a TV show. That's why we're going to be a three dealerships the day before. On this show. We're doing this little thing and we'll be talking about it more first, but you know, we want to have something in the can before we start talking too much too much

Kyle Mountsier  03:28

about that too much. You just the early people you get to

Paul Daly  03:30

know if you were here. If you were here. You heard it first. Yesterday's winner in the motor madness was the Ford Bronco raptor over beat the Corvette man 13%. That's pretty strong. That's strong. That said yesterday you're not a Corvette guy. I'm really fun to drive for sure. But if I had to pick one like I wanted in my garage, it would have been the Ford Bronco Raptor. Today's matchup is a classic matchup six Chevy verse Ford again. Also this time,

Kyle Mountsier  03:56

oh, the 63 Chevy core man and the 74 Mustang Fastback y'all that's I don't even know what I would pick

Paul Daly  04:06

out a very differently gametime decision. 63 veredus. So classic, right. But the Mustang is so cool,

Kyle Mountsier  04:12

fast. It's gonna be gametime decision. I'm just gonna hit one and go hit one. All

Paul Daly  04:17

right. It's been hit one go and segway Alright, yesterday Carvana announced a much smaller core loss than most expected, saying they're looking at a q1 loss now a 50 to $100 million. And nothing. Just let's just contextualize this a year earlier. Right? The loss was $348 million. So okay, it's more, it's more, that didn't suck as bad. So the announcement sent shares North almost 30% yesterday before you know they kind of regulated throughout the day came down, closing about 12% up still, and the company credited better than expected performance in related to aggressive Cost cutting that we've all been paying attention to and watching too. And they've been implementing those cost cuts really seriously over the last year, in a regulatory filing Carvana estimates q1 sales will be between 76 and 79,000 units. Last year, they sold 105,000 units. So they're definitely down about 25 30%. But in the quarter just before this, it sold 86,000 units. So there's still a sell on a lot of cars, a lot of cars, you know, and they're saying the drop over last period of this period, high interest rates, hard to, you know, acquire inventory lower and lower ad expenses, because of their, you know, focus on cost. They still swinging man,

Kyle Mountsier  05:39

it was interesting, because what I saw is they were they were actually reading headlines when they made their excuses for where they're at is what they were like, and they can line and this headline, and

Paul Daly  05:48

well, I mean, it's like it's like this. Well, I mean, everybody was kind of do that all last year. Right. Well, there's that's why eruptions and labor shortages, which is why your burger came out which table is this is why expensive eggs are

Kyle Mountsier  06:04

sold at a loss at grocery stores everywhere these days. Yeah, I know, eggs and Carvana you know, we

Paul Daly  06:11

make waves or make excuses, right?

06:16

Yeah, so I mean, look, I mean,

Paul Daly  06:17

Carvanha definitely is still a player selling 80,000 cars is no joke, used cars. You know, nonetheless, there's still

Kyle Mountsier  06:25

a lot through auction blocks a lot of purchasing behavior there, they're not going away. And, and still a lot to learn from a dealer side on what Carvanha is doing, the way they're learning. They're, they're, they're executing some very corporate high level strategies at this point, to try and shift and become profitable again. And so I think it's a heads up move to just pay attention. You know, I think a lot of people kind of counted them out by March, and they're still hanging in there. So that's, that's kudos to their executive team for for figuring out how to how to keep swinging and, and countless losses than q1 of last year. So you know, kudos to them. I got I wouldn't have I wouldn't have seen it come in. I had them. I had them drawn out by March. So

Paul Daly  07:10

I wasn't I wasn't buying any Carvana stuff, that's for sure. Well, speaking of doing new things to sell cars, segue pay attention because this one applies to everybody, whether you're a dealer or an industry partner, and just you hear it so more and more dealers and their employees are taking to Yes, tick tock to pull the curtain back on the buying process and letting some secrets out in the process. Now, you know, tick tock is not the only platform but this was cool because it was in Business Insider and I think when you get that brought outside automotive perspective on what people are doing inside automotive, it can help us give a little get a little more context outside of our bubble to realize what consumers actually want to hear so many of the most popular videos of these dealers or dealer employees in most cases using Tiktok the videos are discussing things like hidden fees. They're explaining how some dealers might use like scarcity tactics to sell cars. You know, they're they're even like, talking about word tracks that dealer might dealers might use to pressure you into buying a car so they're blowing up all the secrets right? Here's a quote. Here's a quote from one of them. Jesse cannon whilst a salesperson at Mercedes Benz Atlanta. I'll have to check her out when we go to Atlanta with with the show, but she says Tiktok has actually produced more sales more calls and more immediate business than any of the other channels I view she has 121,000 Tik Tok followers another one of these dealer employees Tito suave asst his real name a salesperson at get me started Sarasota Florida. He's got over half a million Tik Tok followers and he posts videos sharing word tracks that some dealers will use to try to pressure you into buying a car I watched one it was really funny. He's standing in front of like an A chord with a bumper fallen off and and the guy holding the camera has given them all the things I don't know I have to think about think about it think I got five more appointments on this car right now you think five people are gonna say no me this and the cars real life

09:08

it's the real life version of the badger you know, it's like hey, just great idea. It's the real life version of the Badger and I like this is I think it's this is what everybody wants right a few years back we saw a big trend toward kind of behind the scenes that things like restaurants and all of the behind the scenes stuff that makes an auto such an interesting industry so just peel back the curtain that's what we're actually doing when we go to three dealerships in Arlington we're peeling back the curtain Oh yeah. Start to peel back the curtain because like people are interested in in the how it's made, right make the modern how it's made. Like bowling in. Yeah, I like that. Yeah,

Paul Daly  09:50

man. The Badger commercials are so good. They are good. Like I don't know we have to think about is like I'm going to sell it right off Monday. You won't be here. So yeah, no, that's fantastic show A check out the link in the show notes. You can go and check out some of these tick tock videos. But the cool part about these is anyone can do them. Yep, they are zero cost because everyone's got a phone and tick tock is still free as far as last time I checked. And

Kyle Mountsier  10:13

it's still around. It's may not be out there today. But we'll see.

Paul Daly  10:18

Well, it's a whole different story. But the point is what consumers want to know, they want to know they can trust you, period. And if you talk about things that they want to know and be transparent and honest with them, guess what? They start to trust you Ellie Lane just comments on the live stream and she says The Tick Tock bump is no joke. She posted a link here in the show notes that you can go to LinkedIn and check the link out whatever he or she posted in the comments. All right, we got one more Kyle, this is close to your heart put this one in here because uses the coke exam. Here we go.

Kyle Mountsier  10:45

I love this one. So Coca Cola has launched an AI platform called create real magic which combines open AI is chat cheap, or GPT. Four and Dali. Dali is an image generation AI technologies that offers consumers and select markets across coke branded elements to for use in AI powered art, the artist had the chance to submit work for digital billboards that could be featured in New York City and London. What's really cool about this is basically they've said hey, look, we're going to democratize the brand, we're going to put it in the in the in the hands of people, we're going to allow people to get their hands on our advertising assets, and then test and scale technology. And what I love, like the fore side of this is people are already doing it. They're just swimming in the river, they're going alright, if you're already gonna do this to all of the things that that we have out on the internet. Why don't we control and channel it this way, channel it, use user generated content for our own marketing efforts align with what everybody's talking about, which is AI generated content. I mean, it is like a mash up from look, after just coming from going to the coke Museum and recognizing what they've done over the years. From a branding perspective and how they've leaned in in different events and leaning into the colors and what they've assumed of culture. They're just assuming culture again, and grounding it and allowing it to just like be a part of what they do. So it reminds me of something that our friend, music video director and crazy entrepreneur, Darren

Paul Daly  12:25

don't told us when we had the Vegas, the troublemaker event in Vegas, and we got it in there. And we're podcasting and we're just taking all these communication methods that people see as normal. And we're inviting people into them. And we're like doing just doing it. He said, You know what you're doing, you're assuming the center of the conversation. And that is what Coke is doing here. They're taking all this public conversation and they're saying, You know what, actually this conversation you didn't know it, but it revolves around Coca Cola gives people a reason to do it. And it's giving them like a reward. On the other side. It's not just engaged, like, hey, you know what, we're gonna reward the people who do the best stuff. And you might be the one that says, hey, my billboards in Times Square in New York, and we'll probably kick off a career or two. So kudos to coke. And again, let's tie this back to the auto industry. What is going on in culture? How can you make your store your people, your involvement in the community, the center of the conversation, that's one of the things we're trying to do with this show. And with the the live events in Arlington and I were going to invent some invite some people from outside automotive to be there too. And we need to show them that the center of retail is actually automotive. They just didn't realize it yet. Yep.

Kyle Mountsier  13:36

Peel back the curtain and assume the center.

Paul Daly  13:39

Well, there you go. If that's not enough to keep you going on the Thursday. I don't know what it is. We gave you all that homework to do today. So get out there and just do one little thing, right? Just make one incremental improvement today. Make a video serve someone in a different way. We'll see you tomorrow.

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