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Buy a Volkswagen this weekend and no more credit card debt. If it snows more than four inches on New Year's Day, the SUV you purchase this week is free. Come in and buy a Ford truck today, and we'll send you on a shopping spree.

It's how they lure the customer through the doors. It's how they compete. It's all about the best deal in town. Sometimes it's hokey, but it works and it's real, said Kirk Oleson, the chief operating officer of Graham Advertising, a Colorado Springs advertising agency that works exclusively with automobile dealerships and auto manufacturers.

Oleson said there are two reasons for the aggressive and colorful campaigns: Auto dealers need to meet daily, weekly and monthly quotas, which is production driven. They need to get the inventory out of the dealership, he said. Manufacturers will reimburse the dealers for added inventory for a couple months. After that, Oleson said there is a carrying charge so it moves the dealer to move the inventory. Second, he said the auto industry is incentive driven. The 0-percent thing has been a big deal across the board, so that's not the big thing to attract the people, Oleson said.

And the occasional whacky ads promoting snow-day give-a-ways and a weekend in Las Vegas do attract the people. For example, Oleson said January is a month when many people have overextended financially from the holidays. That's where the credit card thing comes in, he said. We might promote the auto dealer by saying we'll pay off the credit cards if you buy a car. And that's a real deal - the 21 percent interest rate on the credit card is now erased. Seems like a good plan to me.

Oleson said spring incentive revolve around April 15. Buy a car and the dealer will pay the tax bill. During the summer, an automobile dealer might spring for a customer's round-trip gas fare for a vacation. They have to support the current mindset of the individual buyer, Oleson said. That's why it's important that the dealers know the demographics of their target consumer. The truck consumer is different from the hybrid buyer, and each local dealer has to know what the manufacturer is doing on a national level.

# posted by Medical Information : 3:38 AM