Jeff Schmidt Cadillac

If you have been paying attention to television commercials for Cadillacs recently and you live in Dayton you are probably aware that Jeff Schmidt just purchased Roberts Cadillac. It is now Jeff Schmidt Cadillac. As stated in the Dayton Daily News Mr. Schmidt is planning on "attracting a younger crowd" to the Cadillac market. Say What!?!

Per my father (who has a Ph.D in Marketing and follows these kinds of things) the median age of a man who purchases a Cadillac STS is 52 years old. The median age of a man who purchases a Cadillac DTS (The flagship car) is 56 years old. These are descriptors that help define what Marketers would call a Target Market. There are many reasons for this high median age you can probably name a few without any help.

• The cost of a new STS is $49,775.00 per Jeff's website. The cost of a DTS is $54,685.00 fully loaded.
• The styling, while chiseled and modern looking, is not what this younger demographic is after. (see Pontiac G6 with it's new curved lines and convertible 2-Door option.)
• 4-door large wheel base luxury sedans do not sell to families who have parents in their 40's and need practical cars (i.e. a Minivan)

I assume Mr. Schmidt is meaning someone in their 40's when he claims to reach the younger market. See above description and think of the 40 year olds you know: Do they have $50,000 to spend on a car? Will they allow their pre-teens to haul their muddy soccer gear all around town in a new STS?

Marketing 101. The answer to the questions above is "No". As we learned in our consumer behavior courses, the target market selects the product. Not the other way around. Groups of people are naturally drawn to products for specific reasons. If you try to "push" or suggest a product to a group outside of the primary target market your marketing efforts will have a very minimal effect.

From what I can tell Mr. Schmidt is doing his very best to be different. Understandably so as he bought a failing dealership. He does need to do something. Age, however, is not the place to change the game. Perhaps he should focus on service, possibly he could throw in an extra year of that fantastic OnStar service. He could maybe even buy the first "X" people who purchase a Cadillac a round of golf for 4 at a local swanky country club.

What ever he decides it needs to appeal to the same group that buys Cadillacs normally. Think 50+. What do they like to do? What is their stage of life? Where do they travel? Who is their peer group? Who are they trying to impress? What is their primary reason to purchase?

I wish Mr. Schmidt the best. But unfortunately his current model will not work in the long run. He is making a classic mistake. He is trying to change the customer base, rather than focusing on the customer.

Woot!

Woot! Stands for " I Want One Of Those"

Woot! is probably the best example of the power of the internet that I have found for consumer products. It is also the perfect example of the power of economies of scale. For those of you who do not know here is a little about Woot!

Woot! is a website that offers only one product every day at Midnight for discounted price. They give pictures, descriptions, even a clever blog that talks about the product. Most of these products have some kind of technical theme. I have seen everything from headphones to padlocks listed. Every day it is some new surprise.

In regard to price, I have checked around and it is almost always the best deal going no matter what product. How can they do this? Volume. Their economies of scale are phenomenal. Every day there is a different market and a different consumer base that is attracted to that market. Products that seem to have no real place anywhere else fly off of the shelves of Woot. Some of these products are sold out before I get to work at 8:00AM.

They are also very clever in the information that they give out. You never know exactly how many they have in stock, but they do have histogram graphs letting you know how man people purchased this product and at what time.

I am not sure if this was intentional but Woot! has built this off of the QVC phenomenon we are all so familiar with. QVC sells one product for a limited period of time, and they have written the book on television sales. Not only do you get to view the product, learn a little bit about it, but it is also entertaining. Woot! has captured all three of these aspects.

What is next...Woot! TV?

Stay tuned to find out.