2017 Azbee Awards of Excellence
Category
Print > Impact/Investigative > Heartland
Awarded to
Amy Wilson, Jamie LaReau, Hannah Lutz, Arlena Sawyers, and Nick Bunkley, Staff Reporters; Dave Guilford, News Editor
Entry details
Pressure to 'punch'
Issue date (if applicable): 3/14/2016
Publication name: Automotive News
Publishing company: Crain Communications Inc.
Website home page: autonews.com
Please describe the publication's mission and readership:
Automotive News serves automakers, suppliers and dealers. Our 57,000 paid subscribers are split roughly into thirds: dealers; automakers and suppliers; and others. Our mission is to be the primary source of industry news, data and insight for the industry’s decision makers. We provide our audience the information they need, in a timely manner and in the format that they desire. Automotive News (in weekly tabloid print, digital and e-newsletter formats), autonews.com, related magazines, our daily webcasts -- First Shift in the a.m. and AutoNews Now in the p.m. -- and our specialized e-newsletters are part of Crain Communications. Our website has 340,000 registered users and averages 2.2 million visits a month, with 1.3 million unique visitors. The vast majority of our articles are staff written. Our coverage includes regular monthly pages/departments: Production Line, Connected Car, Marketing, Finance & Insurance, Fixed Operations, and Remarketing. The first is devoted to supplier/technology news; the last three to key dealership profit centers. Industry executives pay up to $1,500 to attend our annual events, proof that they see value in those events. These include (with 2017 attendance): Automotive News World Congress (1,100+), L.A. and N.Y. marketing seminars (800+; 500+); Best Dealerships To Work For seminars and dinner (400), and PACE awards for supplier innovation (450).
Please describe the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:
It was one of the auto industry’s worst-kept secrets. Automotive News had heard complaints from dealers for months about automakers’ pressuring them to mark cars as “sold” and put them in their loaner fleet. Doing so makes automakers’ new-vehicle sales figures shine for Wall Street, and in some cases, helps dealers reach automaker-set bonus targets. But, as this story uncovered, the practice has a dark side.
This story involved extensive reporting by our team of retail reporters for a fast turn-around to beat competitors. Few dealers or others would speak on the record. Two lawsuits provided support for the story, a leaked memo helped, and comparing actual registration data against claimed sales results tied it all together. It was such a compelling story that the New York Times copied it two weeks later (“A dance between dealer and carmaker on sales; April 1, P. B1) — but didn’t give us credit. The article brought discussions about the impact of punching out into the open. In late March, an adviser to dealers looking to sell their stores told the Automotive News Retail Forum that the attention given “punching” had brought a rare decrease in the value of BMW dealerships. And there is circumstantial evidence that we discouraged BMW somewhat: Its U.S. sales fell year-over year every month in 2016, and it’s going to end the year in 3rd place among luxury brands, which would be its lowest finish since 2000.
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Pressure to 'punch'
Category
Print > Impact/Investigative > Heartland
Description
Publication name:
Automotive News
Company:
Crain Communications Inc.
Winner Status
- Regional Bronze Award
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