N.Y. BMW store relied on unusual marketing, a powerful brand and being fortunate

Jeremy Alicandri, then-vice president of corporate development for Habberstad Auto Group, of Huntington Station, N.Y., oversaw the opening of a $17 million facility for Habberstad BMW of Bay Shore in Bay Shore, N.Y. — just in time for the recession.

The construction and launch of a new store is always challenging, but amid the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the pressure and uncertainty hit tenfold, Alicandri recalled.

‘Tacky,' but attention grabbing

Alicandri, now a managing director at Maryann Keller and Associates, said that pure luck was largely responsible for keeping the dealership afloat — along with a good location, loyal premium customers and some unique marketing tactics.

Ten years later, one anecdote especially demonstrates the scope of the recession for Alicandri.

As industry sales tumbled, Habberstad BMW and other dealerships were desperate to slash advertising costs. So instead of buying billboard advertising, the dealership took advantage of its location alongside a highway and put a sign with massive lettering in its second-story windows.

"For a big BMW store, it was kind of tacky to be frank," Alicandri laughed. "But it was a great way to get attention."

Habberstad BMW of Bay Shore reaped favorable publicity for being among the first green BMW dealerships in the country. And over the course of 2009, the dealership's numbers gradually improved.

Still, "we didn't know how quickly it would get to the level we needed it to be in order for the store to be profitable," Alicandri said. So the dealership group had to leverage the resources it had in its existing stores to ensure this new rooftop was a success.

Alicandri, who was named to Automotive News' 2013 class of 40 Under 40 — 40 up-and-comers under age 40 in auto retailing — was hired full-time at Habberstad Auto Group in 2009. He helped the group focus on centralizing advertising and reducing simpler expenditures, such as the number of employees answering the phones. He also employed community outreach as a form of inexpensive viral marketing.

Habberstad BMW of Bay Shore sponsored an essay contest for students in neighboring school districts. More than 10,000 students of three school districts wrote essays about why environmentally friendly or "green" programs were important for a community. Each school district's administrator selected a winner, and Habberstad BMW of Bay Shore then gave $1,000 to each for a class party. Afterward, the town supervisor presented the oversize checks at each school. The contest engaged students and their vehicle-buying parents and raised awareness of the sustainable aspects of the dealership.

"Many dealers were completely disconnected from digital advertising" at the time, Alicandri recalled. "It was a way to get advertising for the store inexpensively as compared to traditional media."

The new store also benefited when a rival, BMW of the Hamptons, closed. Because of luck like that, cost-cutting and a constant search for new efficiencies, "we were able to make the store a success," Alicandri said. "By 2010, it was profitable."

Resilient brand

Knowing what he knows now about the industry and economic patterns, Alicandri said much of the dealership's success was simply in its brand.

"We would have never built a store of that magnitude" had the group known that the recession was about to hit, Alicandri said. "BMW was more resilient than some of the other automakers. Our experience was we just happened to have a great brand. It would have been a different experience if we had had Chevrolet."

That said, the main lesson of the recession was not what brand to have in your portfolio, but to simply be prepared for anything, he said.

"The financial crisis was a reminder that a day of reckoning could come at any time and a lot of dealers have followed that as a possible indicator in future decisions," Alicandri said. The crisis convinced dealers "that anything could happen."