Earnhardt: Cowboy marketing blazed a trail

Hal "Tex" Earnhardt Jr. built an auto retail empire in Arizona from a single Ford store in 1951.

Earnhardt was a rodeo cowboy in his early 20s when he entered the industry after working at his family's Chandler, Ariz., gas station.

And he integrated his passion for rodeos with his passion for the car business. Earnhardt, who died in April 2020, would sit in the cafe at Earnhardt Ford almost every day well into his 80s, wearing the cowboy boots and hat that had become his signature look.

He created what would become Earnhardt Auto Centers' tag line — "That ain't no bull"— when he rode a steer in a parade and was asked how he kept the bull calm, family members have said.

"You see people copy it all the time," said Dodge Earnhardt, Tex Earnhardt's grandson and a dealer operator of the family-run group, referring to other dealership groups using a "no bull" slogan.

"He definitely was thinking farther ahead and looked at marketing and everything a different way," said Dodge Earnhardt, a 2012 Automotive News 40 Under 40 honoree.

From his cowboy persona to his charisma, "he just carried it all the way through," his grandson said, adding that with Tex Earnhardt, it was 100 percent authentic.

"It worked, and that's what made him successful — whether they saw him on TV or they saw him at the dealership or they saw him at a restaurant," Dodge Earnhardt said.

Tex Earnhardt believed in TV advertising. In the 1980s and 1990s, not many competitors were as heavily present on TV and radio, Dodge Earnhardt said: "He loved doing the commercials. He liked that a whole lot more than crunching the numbers and being the hard-driving manager or being the guy that's trying to be a closer or a trainer on the sales floor."

Earnhardt Auto Centers ranked No. 18 on Automotive News' most recent list of the 150 top dealership groups in the U.S., with retail sales of 30,221 new vehicles in 2021.

The group currently operates 17 dealerships, all in Arizona, and employs about 1,700 people, said Dodge Earnhardt, who helps run the group with Tex Earnhardt's sons and other grandchildren.

These days, the dealership group is not as present on TV and radio as the marketing world has changed to emphasize digital, Dodge Earnhardt said.

"The old days of the 30-second commercial just isn't what it used to be," he said, adding that consumers today have far more choices.

What hasn't changed?

"We still have the bull," he said.