Rita Case has run car dealerships for 50 years, and she says nothing worries her more right now than affordability: loans stretching to 84 months, a basic new car costing $48,000 to $52,000, and used cars on the road averaging more than 14 years old. She and Jordan Zimmerman, once the titans of TV car advertising, explain why general TV "isn't really a good spend anymore," and Jordan walks through how his agency now runs five competing AI agents that grade every ad buy and flag anything that scores below 90%.
Rita Case is the President and CEO of Rick Case Automotive Group, representing 10 brands across South Florida and Atlanta. Her father was the first Honda dealer in the United States, she was the first person to sell a Honda car, and in 1986 she became the first Hyundai dealer in America. Outside the showroom, she founded For Every Kid, raising $500,000 up front to give two new pairs of brand-name shoes to each of the 7,800 students identified as homeless in Broward County schools.
Jordan Zimmerman is the Founder and Chairman of Zimmerman Advertising, which he sold to Omnicom in 1999 after winning Nissan's regional business and bought back this year after a two-year negotiation. His agency has worked with brands from Nissan to Planet Fitness, Five Below, and Ollie's, and he has ownership stakes in businesses including Blue Compass RV, which went from zero to $3 billion in revenue in four years. He speaks candidly about why he wanted his freedom back, why he sleeps about three hours a night, and why he thinks every business that stops adapting starts going backwards.
They explain:
◼ Why Jordan says Google "has a racket," and why his agency is testing AI search platforms instead
◼ How a service drive can see that a customer servicing their Civic was shopping for a CR-V the night before
◼ Why Korea told Rita it's cheaper to ship a Kia to America and pay the tariff than to build it here
◼ How AI agents flag the five used cars at each store that need to go before they lose more value
◼ Why Jordan builds and trains his own AI agents instead of paying for someone else's
◼ Why Rita says automakers must bring back lower-priced models before buyers are shut out completely
Topics:
00:00 First Person To Ever Sell A Honda Car.
05:00 Bought His Agency Back For Freedom.
10:00 General TV Is No Longer A Good Spend.
14:00 Mud Slinging Breaks Consumer Confidence.
18:30 Search Gives Too Much, Not Enough To Click.
23:00 Equity Mining Sees What Customers Browse.
27:00 Agents Will Shop For Everything Soon.
31:30 Affordability Keeps Her Up At Night.
36:00 Manufacturers Must Build Lower Trims.
40:30 Buyers Going 84 Months On Car Loans.
45:00 Dealers Finance The OEM Balance Sheet.
50:00 Five AI Agents Compete Against Each Other.
This episode is brought to you by:
1. @CDKGlobal - CDK AIVA for CRM with agentic AI helps dealerships automate customer engagement, respond to inquiries around the clock, and improve lead follow-up so sales teams can focus on selling. Learn more @ https://www.cdkglobal.com/automotive-crm
2. @Podiumsoftware - Podium is the AI platform trusted by 1 in 4 dealerships. Their AI converts leads 40% higher than the industry average and can be customized to how each store sells. Visit @ https://automotive.podium.com/cdg to learn more.
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