Driving the brand experience at a car dealership
The power of a brand plays a critical role in auto-buying decisions. A brand represents an idea and a set of values that are widely recognizable in the marketplace. The same branding principles that dealerships follow are inherent in popular retail establishments, such as Starbucks, Apple, Best Buy and Shoppers Drug Mart.
In the past two decades, hundreds of new car dealerships have been built or renovated in accordance to the manufacturer’s branding requirements. In each case, every element of architectural design, colour scheme, signage, furniture and building materials has been carefully mandated by the manufacturer.
Today, dealerships representing the same nameplate look similar in appearance and design, in order to distinguish its products and services from the competition and to maintain a consistent brand image and customer experience.
While automakers work hard to distinguish their brands, individual dealers will create distinctive brands of their own, separate from the corporate identity but often tied closely to it.
Branding at the dealership level also involves phone etiquette, relationships with suppliers, e-commerce experience, website design and presence on social media. From the back end to the front end of a dealership’s operations, a chain reaction of experiences establishes the brand.
And this is where a local branding & design agency can work with local car dealerships to help them create their own unique brand image.
Straydog is now working with North Vancouver Mitsubishi which owns the North Vancouver Mitsubishi, Fraser Valley Mitsubishi and now Kamloops Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram. Recently, we have worked on updating the North Vancouver Mitsubishi dealership logo, designed in-store signage, marketing and collateral material, created some digital ads for web, newspapers ads, worked on a number of video’s for online and on-presence promotional purposes, including at BC Lions games and UBC Thunderbird games.
We also worked closely with them on their marketing strategy for their sponsorship of
Primal Quest 2018 in Squamish, BC. For this event, we provided the following services:
- Graphic design for outdoor signage,
- Graphic design for vehicle wraps for their Mitsubishi sponsor vehicles,
- Strategy and design for online ads,
- Graphic design for print ads
- Video editing services
If you’re looking for award winning brand strategy and design work for your dealership, give us a call at 604-913-7936 or drop us an email, we’d be happy to help you drive your dealership’s brand forward.
