Car Dealer Giving Away Free AK-47's

I ran across this video recently which I thought was worth sharing. I've seen a lot of gimmicks used by car dealers to draw a crowd, but never anything like this. There are some good lessons to be learned from this dealer, even though you may not agree with his tactics...



Whether you agree with this dealer or not in his advertising practices, you have to admit one thing: he's got a huge amount of exposure as a result of this. Sure, some people are going to be definitively turned off by this, but when you consider the exposure he's getting from CNN and other national news, local news, YouTube views, syndicated radio shows, and blogs like this, I'm sure there is a significant net gain in the number of potential customers the dealership has been getting. Even if someone isn't a gun owner, seeing news pieces like this often end up in Google searches for the dealership. The dealer even mentioned how much his website traffic (and resulting sales) are up.

Personally I feel this marketing takes things to a different level, but I like how this dealer thinks outside the box. How many YouTube videos or CNN bits have you seen on a particular dealer offering a free gas card?

Max Motors is now upping the ante...instead of AK-47's with a purchase, they're now offering a .50 cal sniper rifle with any Viper purchase. Same sort of promo as the last one, but they wouldn't get any additional press if they simply continued the AK-47 promo, so why not take it up a notch to get more people talking?

I see only one problem with their marketing campaign. They obviously have done a great job at creating attention/interest, but upon examination of their website I think their conversion rate could be a lot higher if the site wasn't so busy. Granted, I don't know what their conversion rates are, but with all the "crap" on their site I'd be willing to bet that a more simple, to the point site would help their sales. Even a micro site for the "Snipers for Vipers" campaign.