Used car marketplace site Vroom will be returning to the Super Bowl this year for the second year in a row.
Vroom has seen sales skyrocket after last year’s Super Bowl ad. The company’s latest numbers show a 161% increase in ecommerce gross profit to $50.4 in Q3 2021, with ecommerce unit sales up 123% year over year. As last year’s spot focused on buying cars, this year, the brand flips the script and focuses on the ability to sell cars.
“Sports and live sports have been a really successful piece for us in our overall marketing spend,” Peter Scherr, CMO of Vroom, told Brand Innovators. “There is no bigger stage than the super bowl to leverage that destination viewing concept. We are really pivoting off of last year’s Super Bowl ad where we were showcasing how easy it is to buy a car compared to the traditional dealership. This year we are going to introduce the concept of selling your car through Vroom, without having to meet strangers and negotiate around the price. Given what is happening with supply chain issues, we felt that it was the right time to highlight our car selling capabilities. In every measure, the 2021 experience shows us how impactful the Super Bowl is, in terms of being the tent pole event for us.”
The “Flake the Musical” :30 second spot, made in conjunction with Vroom’s ad agency of record Anomaly, aims to emulate the emotional challenges consumers might feel trying to sell a car on a peer-to-peer site when the would-be buyer does not come through. This is accomplished through a Broadway musical-style song and dance choreographed by La La Land choreographer Mandy Moore.
The concept for the ad came out of brand research that found consumers experienced a lot of issues around selling cars on peer-to-peer networks.” Anyone that has tried to sell a car online knows that it can be a frustrating experience, so we wanted to illustrate the rollercoaster of emotions that happen to sellers – they get excited when they meet a buyer only to have someone cancel on them,” explained Scherr.
Vroom aims to overcome this challenge by doing the heavy lifting – a consumer lists their car, gets an instant appraisal and Vroom sells the car. The site handles the pick up and the payment, alleviating any of the uncertainties.
The service has been in higher demand this year as buying cars – both new and used – has been harder than ever with supply shortages. “Given the circumstances of supply chain issues and economic factors, equally important to selling cars is filling our shelves with great inventory from our customers to sell to other customers,” Scherr said.
The brand released the full ad a couple of weeks early and will be doing lots of digital marketing ahead of the big game. “We wanted to release the spot early, and as a young brand we thought it would be great to get in the conversation in the game,” said Scherr. “We have a very thoughtful social media strategy that will be activated during and after the game. It will be fun, engaging and really highlight the emotional rollercoaster of trying to sell your car on a peer to peer network who often flake out on you.”
As the company looks ahead to the rest of 2022, they expect to see the adoption curve of buying and selling online to grow over the next year. Will Vroom be back at the Super Bowl for the third year in a row?
“We make plans based on goals for the company,” says Scherr. “If this fits into our plan, we are super excited to do that and be a part of it. To build our brand and associate ourselves with the biggest cultural event of the year. It is more than a game, it is a cultural event in America and we feel it is great to be a part of that. It made a lot of sense to be a part of that last year, and this year, we’ll just have to evaluate future plans but it will be mapped to our future goals.”
