Rather than standing among a shining sea of new cars and shouting about great deals, University Chrysler owners Dave Drane and Danny Burks promoted their dealership by spending a day at the hair salon.
The television ad begins with Burks telling a woman getting her hair done that she would look “marvelous” as a blonde. After a brief discussion of her recent purchase from University Chrysler, the ad showed Burks and Drane playing with salon equipment, Drane asking for a “little off the top” of his bald head and, finally, Burks snoring under a hair dryer, while Drane reads a magazine.
The hair salon skit is one of many that have set University apart from the stereotypical automotive ad and established the two owners as the jesters of the local market. Subsequent ads have shown Burks being defeated by a child in karate and the two attempting to assist another former customer in holiday meal preparation.
According to Burks, the impetus behind the ads — at least at first — was to introduce the two owners to the community when they took over the dealership in 2004.
“We had to take the store in a new direction and get people to know what we were and make it ours, Burks said. “We’re just regular guys; we’re from this area; we’re approachable.”
The first commercials were made in true do-it-yourself fashion, with the two owners developing the concepts themselves and shooting the spots with Burks’ home video camera.
“The idea was to make fun of us,” Drane said of the early commercials. “One of our first campaigns was, ‘We’re No. 4’ … The idea of that was very few people have ever won anything, you know, ever been first at anything. But a lot of people have been fourth.”
Although it might seem an unusual introduction for new owners in a competitive auto market, both owners said sales numbers are not the main focus of the dealership.
“We need to sell a certain amount of numbers from a business standpoint to make everything work,” Burks said. “But our real concern is the relationship that we have with the customers, that we do well in the community and we can take care of our employees. If we can do all that, it really doesn’t matter if we sell as many as someone across town or not.”
Drane and Burks stressed the importance of being part of the community. Both were raised in the Columbia area, and Drane said both of their families have been in Boone County for more than 200 years.
“We’re part of this community; we care about this community,” Drane said.
And while University Chrysler has moved to a new location on Vandiver and begins the process of restocking inventory following Chrysler’s restructuring, Drane’s goals remain the same.
“The measure for success for us is when we can walk out on the showroom floor and have a nice conversation with people that we know, that we’ve done business with,” Drane said.
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