The BrumBlog

This may or may not be representative of Dennis.

I’m sure that you have a car dealership in your area who’s ads are pretty annoying. In my area there’s a dealership named Dennis that has ads that are really awful to me. I decided to send them an email about one of their ads that featured the owner’s kids.

Here’s my first email.

I will never be a customer nor will I let anyone in my family be a customer of Dennis. Why? Your advertising. Specifically the ads with children.

I’m sure that those ads were calculated to appeal to a certain type of
customer. They have elicited the worst response in myself and many of
my friends and family. I will never buy a car from any Dennis
dealership. I will not even consider looking on a Dennis lot for a new
or used car, and will tell others to do the same. Whenever I hear the
beginning of a Dennis ad on the radio that I recognize, I change the
channel.

I wish that I could say what I hate about the ads. I don’t have kids,
but I love kids. I have many nieces, nephews, and cousins that are the
age of those kids. Their (the children’s) attitude, the reactions of
the adult, the general writing and delivery of the script, the
message, it is all lost on me. What ever it is about these ads, they
make me change the channel, reaffirm that I will never be a customer,
and write this email.

I don’t anticipate you changing your advertising, nor do I anticipate
anything that could change my mind. I just thought that you should
know.

Thanks for your time,

Sure I was a little rough, but I just wanted to get it off my chest. I was expecting them to respond simply, “Thanks for your input, but there’s no accounting for taste.” They’d be right. It’s probably just me.

I was surprised that I got this from Aaron, General Manager/Vice President of Dennis.

Thank you for your impassioned response to our advertising. I wish everyone would give us imput on our approaches to business, but alas most other people are busy with the other important things in their lives, like RAISING KIDS. You on the other hand where never one of the majority of people that was able to meet someone and be able to share one of life’s greatest enjoyments. For that I’m truly sorry.

Maybe you might want to consider some of the other reasons people do things rather than reacting to advertising. Over 5,000 people per year find the Dennis experience to be superior to others they have tried, and over 17,000 per year use our service, parts, and body shop venues. They do this based on the level of service we offer at competitive rates. They don’t let things like whether or not we’ve portrayed the acts of children correctly, but then, many have children so they can relate.

Let us take a minute out to reflect and appreciate your lot in life. There that’s done now we can get on to the really important things in life, like living. We do wish you well, and hope your automotive travels all go as you planned, but should they not, I hope you don’t have a relationship with an automotive agency and have it go bad only to find you made your choice on whether or not they misinterpreted your vision of how a commercial should be percieved..

Such is the fate of the commercially impaired…

regards

Did I deserve that? Perhaps, but I didn’t think so. Here’s my response to Aaron

Aaron,

I tried (and evidently failed) to be as impersonal as possible, but you’ve obviously taken this personally. I never made any personal assumptions about the people in the ads (because they’re characters) nor the people at Dennis, because I don’t know any of them, or you.

You on the other hand made a few assumptions about me which were all completely false. I’m sure that your current customers return with good reason and that you try your best to make them happy. You wouldn’t be in business long if you didn’t.

Let’s remove the ads from this conversation. I can tell that based on our recent emails, you seem to be a person who is quick to judge, patronizing, rude, unprofessional, and posses a bit of a superiority complex. I don’t feel this way against anyone at Dennis, just you. Unfortunately this only reaffirms my original sentiment, except now I have something physical to show to my family and friends and post on the web.

I hope that you take your own advice and not dwell on this. I won’t, and I hope that you are yours are well.

Thanks,

So that’s all. Take it for what it’s worth. If I get any more correspondence, then I’ll post it here. Lord knows that I’ve been so busy with new job, training, wife graduation plans, etc. Any thing that I can post on the blog is welcome.