Cars.com
Brand Evolution

Situation

Cars.com was founded as the newspaper business moved their classified advertising online during the rise of the internet. Over the next 20 years Cars.com dominated the auto marketplace category, but competitors were entering the market and stealing share. The brand's positioning – Helping people win – lacked uniqueness and clarity and needed to be rethought so that car buyers and sellers understood what made Cars.com different from other auto marketplaces.

Solution

Everyone loves the dream of a new car and the moment they drive it off the lot, but the time between dreaming and driving – shopping – is hated. In fact, research showed us that people would rather do some pretty hard things than shop for a car, including:

• Sit in the middle seat of an airplane

• Talk on the phone with their mother-in-law

• And even give up sex for a month

A new automobile is the second biggest purchase most people will make after a new home, so how do we get them to care? We identified a key insight that unlocked thinking for the brand: Everyone has their car mojo. For each of us it is a different moment, but there’s always a moment where we feel “this is the car for me.” For some it’s the first time they feel the power of the car as they press on the accelerator. For others, it’s the tactile touch of the interior. For some it’s the design of the exterior. And for others, it may be the cargo capacity – so they know their children’s sports equipment will all fit.

We coupled this with data that showed us that ~60% of site visitors did not know which make/model/year of automobile they were interested in, but 100% of auto marketplaces made visitors start their search with this info. 

All together this made us think about other categories that were allowing people to explore to find something they love. Taking a nod from dating sites, we landed on positioning Cars.com as a matchmaker – a site that helps shoppers and sellers find their perfect match.

Brand Purpose

Cars.com exists to create car chemistry.

Delivering Car Chemistry

To deliver on this purpose, we also developed an alternate shopping journey for visitors, allowing them to tell us about themselves (what they want in a new car, how they’d use it, etc) and we’d show them matches. By providing a thumbs up or thumbs down on the matches, the site would learn about their preferences and improve matches presented moving forward.

Seth’s Role

VP Brand Marketing