Legal Marketing Issues for Today’s Modern Automobile Dealership

Legal Marketing Issues for Today’s Modern Automobile Dealership

By Mark Ishman

It is safe to say that most, if not all, vehicle buyers utilize the Internet during their shopping process.  This includes locating dealerships, their vehicle inventory and customer reviews on the Internet after watching, hearing or viewing dealerships’ targeted advertisements.

In targeting vehicle buyers, today’s modern dealerships have invested heavily in their individual websites and virtual billboard advertisements such as pay-per-click and banner advertisements. Today’s dealerships have also used Internet-based communications such as e-mails, instant messaging and Tweets™ to advertise their vehicles and services, and have paid particular attention to the way Internet users locate the vehicles in which they are interested.

With today’s new marketing opportunities come new risks as the changing law adapts to the evolving use of technology for commercial transactions. This article is intended as an overview of the many legal marketing issues the Internet raises for the modern dealerships, and identifies new areas of law that the Ishman Law Firm can provide advice and counseling. 

Advertisement in the New and Evolving Media

As a modern dealership, you are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in your print, radio, television and online advertisements.  Additionally, your investment in advertising naturally has developed your “branded” identity.  As a result, all forms of your advertisements, website content and brands are your intellectual property, and they can be protected by obtaining federal copyright and trademark registrations.  Not only do such Intellectual Property registrations add value to your dealership’s net worth, but they also can prevent, or quickly resolve, unfair and deceptive practices by a competing dealership that utilizes your copyrighted ad content or trademarks to compete against you.  If you are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in television, radio, Internet or print advertisements, Ishman Law Firm can assist you in securing your intellectual property rights in order to add value to your dealership’s net worth and deter your competitors from unlawfully using it to compete against you.

Keyword Advertisements

As a modern dealership, you are also targeting your vehicle buyers by using the same search engines those buyers use to find information about their desired vehicles and your dealership on the Internet.  Internet search engines, such as Google®, bing™ and Yahoo!®, assist vehicle buyers in locating specific websites that have information about their desired vehicles and dealerships by displaying a list of sites that contain search terms or “keywords” entered by the vehicle buyer.  The order in which the listed websites appear takes on particular importance in light of the view that only the top few sites on the first page of the search results will be visited by vehicle buyer.  As a result, today’s modern dealerships are utilizing online search marketing techniques that focus on increasing the likelihood that their specific websites will appear near the top of generated search results. 

Used properly, online search marketing techniques can directly increase the number of visitors to, and sales by, your dealership.  However, when these techniques are used improperly, they can cause your dealership to lose sales or impose liability upon it. This occurs when a dealership or competing dealerships, utilizes another trademark, slogan or “catch phrase” as a keyword in its online search marketing techniques.  Such unclean online search marketing techniques can result in liability for trademark and copyright infringement, unfair and deceptive business practices, fraudulent misrepresentation and intentional interference with contractual and business relations.

This unlawful activity typically happens in pay-per-click advertisements where one of your competitors pays Google® a fee each time their ad is displayed as a search result when the potential vehicle buyer was searching for your dealership.  If you believe that you are a victim of this type of activity, or similar unfair and deceptive practice, Ishman Law Firm can assist you in stopping it and address the damages that you suffered as a result of such unlawful activity.

E-Mail Marketing

Today’s modern dealership is also sending emails to their existing and potential vehicle buyers.  Both federal and state law prohibits dealerships from sending “unsolicited” advertisement emails that have deceptive header information, or sending such emails to recipients who have “opted out” of receiving such communications from the dealership.  Such laws also require dealerships’ ad emails to disclose certain information to their recipients.  If your dealership fails to comply with both federal and state email laws, then it may face both criminal and civil liability.  Before sending your next email marketing campaign, contact Ishman Law Firm for a CAN SPAM compliance audit.

Reputation Management

After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing and advertising, some dealerships lose sales as a result of negative online reviews.  These online reviews about your dealership are usually posted by a past unhappy customer or disgruntled former employee, and sometimes these reviews are posted by an anonymous author.  When vehicle buyers discover such negative online reviews about your dealership, they often will look elsewhere.  If this occurs to your dealership, Ishman Law Firm can assist you in analyzing negative online comments about your automobile dealership as well as explore various options in how you can effectively address negative online comments including (i) quietly and quickly removing  negative online comments from the website; (ii) post a proactive reply that discloses how you addressed the situation and prevented it from reoccurring; (iii) reveal the identity of an anonymous poster(s) of the  comments; and (iv) recover  damages  suffered as a result of negative online comments.  If you are interested in receiving a free article on what to do if you need assistance with your online reputation management, please contact Ishman Law Firm.

Security of Data Collected Online

Today’s modern dealerships must also establish and maintain reasonable procedures to protect the confidentiality, security, and integrity of personal and financial information they collect and maintain from their clients and prospects.  This begins with adopting and implementing a privacy policy, as well as an internal security policy with supporting procedures.  Without such policies and procedures, dealerships may be violating both federal and state law, and imposing criminal and civil liability upon them that can easily be prevented with sound analysis and planning.  To ensure that your dealership is complying with both federal and state privacy and financial protection laws, or if your dealership needs assistance as a result of a security breach, please contact Ishman Law Firm to assist you through these legal landmines that your dealership must avoid.

IF YOUR DEALERSHIP IS FACING ANY OF THE ABOVE IDENTIFIED LEGAL ISSUES, OR IF YOUR DEALERSHIP DESIRES TO BE PROACTIVE AND IMPLEMENT STEPS TO AVOID AND/OR MINIMIZE FUTURE RISKS, PLEASE CONTACT ISHMAN LAW FIRM.

Mark Ishman is the founding attorney of the Ishman Law Firm, PC. You can reach Mark at: (919) 468-3266 or mishman@ishmanlaw.com.