Tailoring TV content to service clients eases controversy, creates marketing opportunities

Jimmy Macagna says he hates it when service lounge TVs in the dealerships he works for broadcast competitors' commercials to waiting customers.

"But dealing with it wasn't a high priority," says Macagna, marketing director of Pepe Auto Group in White Plains, N.Y., which owns five luxury-brand dealerships in the New York area. "Until the 2016 election."

That year, TV news coverage of the contentious presidential campaign generated heated complaints and even squabbles among customers in the lounges, Macagna says.

"We're not partisan," he told Fixed Ops Journal. "Customers having arguments is not a good experience. We had to take action."

Like thousands of other dealerships, Pepe's two Mercedes-Benz stores now subscribe to products that enable them to control the TV content in their service lounges — to promote their own messages, banish other dealerships' ads and eliminate programming that might upset customers.

Pepe Auto signed up with It's Relevant TV, a content service in Norwalk, Conn., that offers commercial-free TV channels and enables dealerships to broadcast their own programs.

The company has 40 or so dealership customers who pay $99 a month for the service.

Jonathan Krackehl, CEO of It's Relevant TV, says dealerships appreciate the ability to block TV coverage of particular topics. Among examples of keywords dealerships use to filter content from reaching service customers, Krackehl says: "Tesla" and "Trump."

A variety of short-form TV content grabs customers' attention and keeps their eyes off their mobile phones, Krackehl says.

Adopting Krackehl's service "cured the arguments," Macagna says. "But it also opened our eyes to the opportunity it offered. It's a captive audience" in the service lounge.

Pepe's Mercedes dealerships use It's Relevant TV to promote sales events, explain features of the vehicles it sells and inform customers of the stores' philanthropic activities. Macagna says the group's three other dealerships will start using the system by 2020.

Use of TV screens by service departments is changing, says Dave Zuchowski, the former Hyundai Motor America CEO who's now the chief commercial officer at Automotive Broadcasting Network. The Jacksonville, Fla., company provides content to more than 2,000 dealerships that pay an average of about $1,000 a month for its services.

Dealerships increasingly seek to create an internal TV network that offers branding and messaging along with entertainment programs, Zuchowski says. Vendors such as Automotive Broadcasting Network enable dealerships to integrate video content with traditional digital signage displays.

"Information retention from digital signage video is much better than on static displays," he says.

In addition to an array of entertainment choices, Automotive Broadcasting Network offers programs from automakers about new and certified-used vehicles.

It also provides "explainer" videos about vehicle repairs for customers.

Classic Chevrolet-Buick-GMC of Cleburne, in Texas, has been an Automotive Broadcasting Network customer since 2009, says Mike Zorn, the dealership's owner. Five TV screens broadcast general, sports and weather content, along with messages about new vehicles, service specials and accessories sales.

"We incorporate a lot of our local advertising" in the lounge programming, Zorn says. "We just added [messages about] bed liners and window tint."

Customers like the system, Zorn says, although some demanded more local news and weather, and less "feel good" TV. The explainer videos have helped enhance customer knowledge and satisfaction, he says.