Cars.com launches new brand campaign, refreshes image

Cars.com is launching a new branding campaign designed to establish itself as a varied consumer-focused auto services company that goes beyond its 25-year identity as an automotive marketplace platform.

"We are proud of our heritage as an original dot.com company and search engine for automotive and have evolved into a comprehensive platform of possibilities for car buyers and sellers," Jennifer Vianello, Cars.com's CMO, said in a statement Thursday.

Two acquisitions are helping drive the rebrand, Matthew Crawford, Cars.com's chief product officer, told Automotive News. Cars.com acquired automotive financial technology company CreditIQ for $30 million in November 2021. In 2022, the company paid $65 million for Accu-Trade, which provides vehicle appraisal and valuation data and logistics technology. It has used the platform to launch online vehicle acquisition capabilities such as its Instant Offer product.

CreditIQ technology enables the launch of an open marketplace for automotive financing, with both consumer and dealer-focused pieces, including a finance-and-insurance component. About 10 percent of the roughly 20,000 dealers in the Cars.com marketplace have been testing the product and it now will be more broadly introduced to consumers, according to a Cars.com spokesperson.

The rebrand is also informed by the formal integration of Accu-Trade and its assets, Crawford said. Its technology is behind Cars.com's Instant Offer, which launched in mid-2022 to help consumers do a same-day sale of their used cars.

Cars.com's branding campaign is dubbed "Possibilities," with the tagline, "Where to next?"

The updated logo is a more mellow take on the previous iteration, featuring a white oval border and softer purple background.

Cars.com said it partnered with the advertising firm Leo Burnett Worldwide Inc. on the campaign. It includes three 30-second spots showing consumers at different stages of life who need vehicles.

The ads will run across network TV, social media and other digital venues.

A spokesperson for the company declined to disclose how much Cars.com is spending on the campaign.