Dear Premier Collection Team Members,
Thank you very much for taking the time to consider me as a possible new team member. This webpage was created to serve as a private access point to view my response to an email correspondence I have had with Jeremy A. Abramson about a Photographer position. This webpage is not public but it can be shared with others via the URL by copying and pasting it.
For reference, I will include the portion our email that this webpage is addressing: " The main reason we are looking to create this role is to merchandise out cars in a way no that no other dealers do. We want our customers to get a showroom experience from their tablet or desktop.
Would you mind checking out some our sites, reviewing the photo stack of out new and sued cars and then submitting a series of photos of a car - it can be your or any car for that matter"
"Contrast on all Levels"
The Vehicle I chose to photograph for this project is a 2015 Audi SQ5. This vehicle choice and the photo location was not merely an attempt to take photographs of a "nice" car in a "cool" location. Rather, the Audi SQ5 and its specific features combined with the photo location are one of my first approaches to addressing the search for "Merchandising your cars in a way no other dealer is doing'".
• The importance of a quality Title Photo/ Main Photograph cannot be understated. Although I do not know the specific strategies and components employed within your Marketing Funnel to create awareness and leads for the ultimate goal of a vehicle purchase, I do know that most first impressions or initial awareness of a vehicle begin with a photograph.
• Although I have other potential ideas and approaches to work on differentiating The Premier Collection from other dealers, I will first elaborate on one my to ideas to utilize the main/title photo to create eye catching photographs that are both metaphorically and visually highly contrasting.
• In these photographs I sought out a friend's vehicle that was both luxury and either had high ground clearance or air suspension. This Audi SQ5 has the optional addition of Adaptive Air Suspension. I chose to raise the height of the suspension for these photographs in order to depict a capable luxury vehicle within a rugged environment. This is where the "All Levels" aspect of the photo description comes into play.
• To add to the concept of contrast and utilizing a luxury vehicle outside of its standard use cases I added some recognizable high-end construction tools and storage equipment to the trunk that was purposely bright red.
• The environment I chose to photograph the vehicle was not merely to make it look nice. Rather it was an attempt to utilize color theory as one of the simplest ways to capture one's attention with a photo that needs nothing more than a quick glance. The sharp black vehicle in the center is complimented by the intensity of the red of the equipment it the trunk of the car and is then entirely surrounded by green. The simplicity of only three colors and their contrasting nature create an image that grabs attention without even having to see what the photo is.
For the next set of interior photos I chose to wait until just after sunset in order to create images that are unique within the digital landscape of automotive sales.
• Although this specific vehicle does indeed look aesthetically pleasing in these conditions. There are some other vehicles that come to mind in which a photograph in a similar evening setting would look even more phenomenal. For example, many of the Mercedes S-Class, EQS and EQE models are equipped with some spectacular multi-colored ambient lighting features. Capturing these sorts of photos serve not only the purpose of a "cool" looking photograph but also as a way to depict some of the specialty features that cannot truly be seen in traditional daylight photographs.
This is another idea to add something unique to your digital media landscape. This specific video utilizes an independent external microphone to capture the high-quality engine sounds.
Especially for detail-oriented consumers, some individuals will be interested the sound of the both a stock exhaust and also for pre-owned vehicles if they happen to be equipped with a specialty after market exhaust system. A similar concept could be applied to vehicles with components such as turbos.
This format can also be applied in reverse to demonstrate the sound proofing a certain car has. Example: A loud chaotic area with a lot of sounds, but once the vehicle door closes the sounds disappear to illustrate the comfort and solitude of the vehicle.
Overall Thoughts
• Regarding the idea of giving customers an "in showroom experience from their tablet or desktop." there are an assortment of approaches to achieving this goal.
• 1.) Utilize 3D scanning and/or 360 degree camera equipment to create a virtual tour of the interior of the vehicle.
• 2.) Once again employ high quality audio to create ASMR-type videos. Simple short videos showing closeup features with the addition of high quality audio. These videos would not just be a gimmicky approach to simply attach more digital assets to the vehicle's profile. Rather, these videos would help create a more memorable and fulfilling online experience by providing customers with another tool to truly get a feel for the vehicle. During a traditional in-person showroom experience, the mundane sounds and auditory environment the customer experiences may seem unimportant. However, all the sounds in one's day-day-life are actually profoundly important. In fact, studies have demonstrated auditory stimulation has the ability to help both facilitated the formation of new memories and also recall old ones. For example, if there is a vehicle with a unique push-to-start button, a quality video with clear audio of exactly how it would sound to push in person would make much more of a lasting impression on someone versus a static photograph of the ignition button.
• 3.) Expand on the vehicles photo set by including more close-up and detail photographs of important components of the vehicle.
• 4.) Extra Novelty Idea : Setup a 360 livestream camera within one of the vehicles being showcased in the showroom and allow costumers to connect in real time and interact by moving the camera angle around. This is more of a novelty idea where people may have a little fun seeing real time what is going on at the deanship.
Current Digital Media Landscape
As requested, I reviewed the photos that are currently being used on your websites. Before approaching this project I felt that I needed to get a more in-depth idea of what the Premier Collection represents. Although I am not sure if you wanted me to review your social media channels but I wanted to gather an understanding of the entire digital footprint for The Premier Collection. Below I will provide some of my takeaways.
1.) Instagram - Although social media marketing for any product/industry is already a fickle and nuanced endeavor, the automotive industry has to navigate multiple hurdles to actually procure real conversions via social media campaigns. For example, one cannot even even calculate the Cost Per Acquisition of a purchasing customer before also adding on the Cost per Impression and Cost per Lead.
A.) Only 3 of the 7 dealer Instagram pages post regularly in a good Cadence.
B.). Most do not contain any real person/salesman walk arounds or any other category of content outside of generic stock images/videos.
C.) 4 dealers have not posted in over 6 months some upwards of 2 years ago.
D.) One of the best instagram accounts is run by the Subaru of White Plains. They are not doing anything special or fancy but rather just posting in a good cadence with a good mixture of types of posts. In addition, after going through their profile it seems they are benefiting by utilizing a social media scheduler or Auto-Posting program.
2.) Websites - All Websites are easy to navigate and professional looking. However, there are a few inconsistencies that could be addressed.
A.) There are good videos with a lot of vehicles but some sites have no video at all.
B.) In the same way an organized catalog looks, the human eye is drawn to webpages that appear cohesive and easy to "browse" through by way of consistency among the photographs. Both within and between websites there was a bit of Inconsistency with not only the angle of the photograph but also the focal length (making some of the vehicles appear oddly shaped).
C.) One way there is some good consistency among the webpages though is that most vehicles are utilizing some sort of digital background for the main/title photo.
D.) A simple but strong visual tool to foster brand cohesion would be to ensure that all vehicles photographed have a Premier Collection Branded license plate. Most of them already do but a number of vehicles do not have anything.
3.) Youtube - The Premier Collection YouTube channel was quite interesting to look at. The channel was actually started all the way back in 2012 but not used until 7 years ago. One interesting metric is that the channel only has ~600 subscribers but there are plenty of videos that have view counts In excess of 100k.
- Miscellaneous - As I was doing my research I noticed that you guys may have also in the past had a Maserati and also an Alfa Romeo dealership. Although the websites do not work anymore, there is a directory photo and links to those sites still up. One location is on the Hudson Valley Volvo website under the "Our Brands" section. The other place these links are still up is in the description on your YouTube channel.
****Note - All of these recommendations and critiques are in no way an attack on your brand or to say that I can automatically do better. These notes were only created as a way to critically assess the brands Media.**
Closing Words
• From personal experience I am quite aware executing photographs such as these in a dealership environment are just simply not realistic in most scenarios. There Is first the difficulty of simply getting the car detailed for photographing and then staging it for these sort of photos. In addition there is the logistical difficulties keeping up with the amount of day-to-day work ensuring that all the incoming inventory is photographed ASAP.
• With that being said I hope you can view these photo more as an example of some thoughts and ideas for this specific project I have been presented with rather than a representation of how I view the reality of the day-to-day work life.
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Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to go through my submission. I apologize for how long it is and having to deal with the copious amount of information that may have even deviated from what you were asking.
Hope to speak soon.
Sincerely,
Steven Lynn.