Sconda

Andy Scott's 1st TV Ad in 1987: 80's Gold

Did you ever wonder what your parents really looked and sounded like when you were young?  Were they "cool"?  Did they dress with style?  Did they have to try to sell an overstock of 1987 Chrysler LeBarons?

For Andy Scott the answers were "Yes, Yes and Yes!"

When I stumbled upon this piece of pure 80's gold I wanted to immediately show it to all my brothers and sisters (and the entire interweb).  I announced to our family during Thanksgiving to check in on Sconda Blog in the coming week for this little piece history to make it's debut.  The whole table was a buzz as my Dad just smiled, blushed a bit (family trait) and immediately recalled the over order of 100 LeBerons that year that was the focus of his very first commercial.

My Dad has been writing and appearing in his own commercials for his Scott Family of Dealerships for over 20 years.  I remember when I was in elementary school, listening to him read his scripts out loud from his yellow legal pad at the breakfast table.

If you want to know what your parental units were really like back in the day, go into their attic, grab that box of VHS tapes or 8mm film get it digitized asap.  It's fast, cheap and makes the perfect Holiday gift.

WWII Poster from 40's Service Shop Found

This story comes from the most interesting chapter in the 80 year history of Scott Family's time in the car business.  Our founder Raymond P. Scott Sr. converted the service shop of his Plymouth Dodge dealership during World War II to build aileron controls for Grumman F4F Wildcats and Hellcats, as well as catapult carts for Naval ships.

Ray would load the smaller aileron controls into his station wagon and race them up to Grumman’s plant in Bethpage,N.Y. where they were installed in planes that would soon take off to fight over Europe and the Pacific.

I recently posted over 20 historical photos on to our Facebook Fan page and in a caption below the above photo was written, "In the right corner below the "United States" sign is what appears to be one of the classic WWII U.S. propaganda posters. However only the top left side of the poster is visible and I have combed through 100's of the posters from that era and have yet to find a match. I have not given up yet though."

This is where the power of social media took hold.  Sconda Fan and fellow car guy, Al Marie saw the photo and decided to help our cause.  He did in 3 minutes what I couldn't do in hours of searching.  He Googled "World War II posters" as well as the only visible word in the poster "Men" and he came upon the a vast database provided by Northwestern University.  Sure enough, there it was "Men Working Together", the mystery had been solved.

The poster is officially described as, "A helmeted soldier, a factory worker, and a sailor stand proudly together."  This poster, produced by the United States, Office for Emergency Management, Division of Information, in 1941 was perfect for our converted machine shop because my Great Grandfather's employees represented the factory workers, doing their part to help the military win the war.

Ironically the three men "standing together" never stood together until 1942 when they posed for a picture taken by Alfred T. Palmer, an Office of War Information photographer from 1941 to 1943.  The threesome met at Sergeant Vineyard's army post (left), and assumed their famous order with welder George Woolslayer in the middle and Aviation-radio Chief John Marshall Evans on the right.

Special thanks again to Sconda Sleuth, Al Marie who helped bring all this information to light and put together one more piece of the Scott history puzzle.

Sconda's Social Media Study: Part 2 - The Facebook

Of the three social media outlets I will critique, Facebook was the only one I had any familiarity with beforehand.  I have my own Facebook page and have enjoyed the benefits of easier communication with friends and family and it seemed a logical and free place to exercise my marketing abilities with little risk and a large potential reward.

I began by creating a Scott Honda Group Page and was very enthusiastic, recruited a bunch of folks to join, uploaded some photos...and then I hit a wall.  I would discourage car dealers and other business owners from spending too much energy on the group page because it is very limited in form and function.  You cannot import pictures or video as easily and most of all the page is nothing like a normal Facebook page, which means visitors are confused and most likely will not spend much time there.

So after a little research I decided a Fan Page would fit us just fine and 121 fans later I still agree.  This type of page is more editable and has a nice wall for promoting the blog and the dealership, which are essentially one in the same.  In addition to better visibility, the Fan Page provides "Insights" into page hits, clicks, posts etc., which are great for understanding your fan base.  Though they are not broken down to an average per day basis like the Typepad based Sconda Blog numbers, I can still estimate about 15-20 page views a day.

People always ask, "have you had any success stories?".  I would say we have had three. 

In the first example I took advantage of the sites inter-connectivity to promote our "After Prom Accord Winner" Shelby Weber.  Through Facebook I was able to contact Shelby, acquire pictures and promote the giveaway in a way we were never able to do before.

The second success story involved a skeptical young lady who asked on our "wall" whether or not becoming a fan could save her money, as I purported.  So I immediately sent her an E-coupon for a free oil change, to which she replied with a huge thank you and let me know her lease was up in a couple months and she will be coming to us for her next Honda.

The final success story involves a positive interaction with a young lady while she was in the process of buying her new Scott Honda.  She wrote on our Wall, "I am so excited! I just got my new civic today and I am picking it up tomorrow!! Thanks everyone at Scott!"  We had a nice back and forth and I gave her a free Scott Honda hoodie and hat, just for being a good customer and she loved it.

Moving forward I am planning on creating Facebook specific coupons to further add real value in being a fan.  I also see the possibility for contests to be based out of Facebook as well, although I have seen other dealers try to little success.  There are also advertising opportunities within FB that I would like to pursue to increase our fan base as well.

In short Facebook is a free, convenient way to communicate to and interact with our ever growing customer base and according to their numbers, if Facebook were a country it would be the 4th largest in the world, why not take advantage of such a resource.

Sconda's Social Media Study: Part 1 - The Blog

Hello readers, it's your faithful blogger Douglas P., here and it feels like a good time to reflect on the time, energy, resources and outcomes I have observed since I pressed the "publish" button on my very first Sconda post nearly five months ago.

The concept of a blog for our dealership sprang from a conversation about giving our salespeople a digital platform they could use as a sales tool while working in the showroom with customers, an online "Evidence Manual" as we call them. I was so enthused by this idea I literally had a blog in formation 30 minutes later.  I had no idea what it would look like, how I would really use it or if people would read it, but for $89 the risk seemed minimal.

Well, 55 posts and nearly 4500 visitors later I can truly say this has been one the most fun and challenging ledges I have stepped out on in a while. 

A little background on your humble blogger, I was a journalism dork at Emmaus High School and Colby-Sawyer College and my first job after graduation was at the now defunct Suburban & Wayne Times in Wayne, Pa.  So this venture has rekindled my writing itch and given me a great new avenue through which to share the story of this dealership.