Birchwood Auto Group, Manitoba’s largest network of automotive dealerships, wants buyer to have trust in the car-buying process again.

In a hero spot for its “No Second Guessing” campaign, a woman trying to buy a car online has visions of meeting a sketchy seller in a velour track suit, who swears the vehicle was in perfect condition when he acquired it as the engine begins smoking. It then snaps back to reality, showing her walking into one of Birchwood’s dealerships for personal, transparent experience.

The campaign was led by Brandish Agency, which has worked with Birchwood Automotive Group since 2018.

Manitoba-based Birchwood operates 24 dealerships across different automakers, as well as three collision repair facilities and four credit locations. Emilie Carr, brand strategist for Brandish, notes that this gives it a large competitive set that includes other local dealers, as well as other dealership networks with online platforms like AutoCanada and RightRide.

To stand out against that, the campaign aims to address the automotive industry’s prevalent consumer concerns: vehicle quality and seller honesty, which makes many people hesitant about car buying.

“Most automotive dealerships tend to do very little branding and might do some marketing work here and there for sales events, but it is typically in a bottom-of-funnel way,” Carr says.

There was an opportunity, therefore, for Birchwood Automotive Group to invest in its own personal branding, Carr says, telling strategy that past campaigns it had run were more graphics-heavy with a corporate look and feel.

For this work, it wanted to convey a more human element as a way to link the brand to what car buyers in Manitoba want right now, which it is also doing on its TikTok channel. The lack of new car inventory and rising used vehicle prices, for example, has led consumers to lose confidence and trust in the vehicle buying process.

“At the core of our strategic approach lies a deep commitment to placing people first [and] understanding their sentiments and behaviours,” Carr says. “The real challenge lies in how do we create a creative identity and storyline that original equipment manufacturers and their strict brand guidelines can plug and play with to some extent, while keeping that core campaign essence.”

The campaign is geared toward economically savvy Manitobans in the market for a vehicle. The timing is meant to coincide with a spike in used vehicle interest.

The campaign will run across Manitoba through traditional and digital media channels. There is also point-of-sale creative in dealerships. Birchwood handled the media buy internally.