Vroom promises to buy a car without torture

Online used car retailer Vroom buys its first Super Bowl Sunday airtime to introduce the company to the roughly 100 million fans who watch the game each year – and to poke fun at its competition.

Vroom buys and sells vehicles online without requiring customers to visit a dealership. His 30-second Super Bowl ad titled “Dealership Pain” emphasizes the pressure of buying a vehicle through a traditional car dealership.

“We felt like the Super Bowl was going to be that kind of an opportunity for us to get this message across about our brand promise, that you will never have to go to a dealership again,” said Peter Scherr, Marketing Director for Vroom, at CNBC. “We thought this was one way to get a new standard for us in terms of considering Vroom for buying and selling cars. And we’ll continue that momentum throughout ’21.”

Vroom’s business is similar to Carvana, a larger e-commerce platform for buying and selling used cars. But instead of targeting such a competitor, Vroom decided to focus on physical dealerships in general – a much larger market than Carvana customers who are already conversant with buying cars online.

“The way we see it is our biggest competitor, it’s the traditional dealers,” Scherr said. “There is a lot of room for us to be successful in the Super Bowl and Carvana continues on the path to success.”

Vroom CEO Paul Hennessy added: “It just doesn’t make sense to pick one of the smaller players in the industry and compete with them. We are competing with our customers, who are basically customers. traditional dealers. “

Vroom’s ad features a car buyer pressured by a used car salesman almost to the point of torturing him with jumper cables. As the customer pleads to leave, the salesperson bends down to tie the jumper cables to him. When that happens, the chair and stage turn to the man sitting in his front yard with a woman taking delivery of a vehicle from Vroom. “Well, it was painless,” the actor says as the vehicle is delivered.

The Super Bowl ad is part of an ad campaign for Vroom featuring similar spots, including one called “Dealership Deceit” which aired during Sunday’s AFC Championship game for the NFL.

Hennessy and Scherr expect the Super Bowl commercial to continue to build notoriety and business for Vroom, which went public in June.

“We’re thinking long term and building a long term business,” Hennessy said. “We expect Vroom to be a household name.”

Vroom’s sales grew 86% in the first three quarters of last year to 10,860 vehicles, leading the company’s revenue to jump 62% to $ 630.5 million during this period compared to 2019. This compares to Carvana with sales of nearly 172,000 vehicles and revenue of $ 3.8 billion. in the first nine months of last year. Both companies are not profitable.

Vroom shares are up about XX% from their initial public offering price of $ 22 per share. The stock closed Tuesday at $ X.XX a share, down XX% and XX so far this year.

– CNBC Megan Graham contributed to this report.

CUTS
increase awareness of the company and build on strong growth during the coronavirus pandemic.