cDemo’s Mi VIDEO wins 2012 Innovation Cup Award; the Development Team for the Walser Automotive Group wins the 2012 Dealer Best Idea Award

Salt Lake City, Utah – November 5, 2012 – DrivingSales today announced the winners of the 2012 Innovation Cup and Dealer Best Idea Awards. The Innovation Cup Award was presented to cDemo’s Mi VIDEO for the most innovative dealership solution of the year; the Development Team for the Walser Automotive Group won the 2012 Dealer Best Idea Award for the most innovative auto dealership strategy. Both awards were presented at 2012’s sold-out DrivingSales Executive Summit (DSES), the most authoritative profit-building event for innovative dealers, held recently in Las Vegas.

All finalists presented their solutions and best idea strategies onstage at the 2012 DrivingSales Executive Summit, which had approximately 1,000 attendees. A panel of dealer judges asked questions of each presenter and scored each solution / strategy. The solution with the highest score was presented with the 2012 Innovation Cup Award. The strategy with the highest score won the 2012 Dealer Best Idea Award. Cash and prizes totaling $10,000 were awarded to the winner of the Dealer Best Idea Award and runners up.

cDemo’s Mi VIDEO – a solution which captures real vehicle video walk-arounds by customers and uploads them to YouTube – received the highest score, winning the Innovation Cup Award. Finalists were: CallSource’s DealSaver with Mobile App; DMEautomotive’s DriverConnect Mobile App; HookLogic’s Lead2Show, and J&L Marketing bLinked^®.

Walser Automotive Group’s development team, represented by Director of Marketing Alan Krutsch, took home the Dealer Best Idea Award, receiving the highest score for their strategy of adding an “I’ll Take It” button to all inventory, allowing customers to begin the purchase process online. First runner up was Matthew Smith, Marketing Manager, Darling’s, followed by Bryan Wilson, eCommerce Director, Ehrlich Group; Daniel Boismier, Internet Director, The Suburban Collection, and Wendy Lowen, Internet Manager, Park Chrysler Jeep.

“The Innovation Cup and Dealer Best Idea Awards are a highlight of the DSES each year, and this year’s finalists personified excellence with their forward-thinking, smart and practical ideas,” said DrivingSales CEO and Founder Jared Hamilton. “DrivingSales is committed to nurturing and encouraging innovation in the industry, and we were proud to showcase cDemo’s Mi VIDEO and Walser Automotive Group’s ‘I’ll take it’ winning solution and strategy, along with a stellar group of finalists, in front of an audience of their peers. Congratulations to our winners and finalists!”

The Innovation Cup and Dealer Best Idea Awards were part of an exciting line up at this year’s sold out DSES, which included high-profile keynotes from Billy Beane of ‘Moneyball’ fame, SEO ‘superstar’ Rand Fishkin, mobile experience expert Luke Wroblewski, renowned leadership trainer Jim Dance,  prominent Northwestern University marketing professor Florian Zettelmeyer, an exclusive presentation from Facebook and Google, and a one-on-one onstage interview between Jared Hamilton and TrueCar Chairman and CEO Scott Painter. 

The DrivingSales Executive Summit is the most authoritative profit-building event for innovative dealers. DSES brings together the most progressive dealers in the country, along with world-renowned speakers, all focused on pushing the auto industry’s ‘innovation boundaries’ and translating the latest trends and business realities into solid 2013 action plans for every dealership department. The summit is 100 percent dealer-driven and has a vendor-neutral policy, meaning no vendor influence on presentation selection and adherence to a strict dealer-to-vendor ratio and is the only automotive conference where dealers decide the agenda, not the vendor sponsors. This translates into the highest level of learning for the dealer attendees versus other events where workshops are little more than glorified sales pitches. 

For more information about the Innovation Cup Award, go to www.drivingsalesinnovationcup.com/. For more information about the DrivingSales Executive Summit, visit: www.DrivingSalesExecutiveSummit.com or contact dses@drivingsales.com. 

About DrivingSales

Founded in 2008 and dedicated to the dealer community, DrivingSales is a business intelligence and performance improvement company that delivers unbiased*, profit-building information to make automobile dealers more successful through three distinct channels: DrivingSales Data, DrivingSales University and DrivingSales Media. DrivingSales Data houses the largest database of cross-vendor, dealership performance data in the North American auto industry and provides dealerships with the most statistically accurate performance benchmarks and metrics for their marketing and technology investments. DrivingSales University is a fully interactive online university that offers advanced profit-building strategies to automotive professionals through hundreds of classes taught by world-leading experts. DrivingSales Media connects dealers to peers and information through its global media assets, including DrivingSales.com, the world’s largest automotive social network; The Dealership Innovation Guide, an industry leading quarterly publication; DrivingSales Executive Summit, the top automotive conference for progressive dealers, and DrivingSalesTV, Web TV covering everything car-dealer related. Approximately one in every three dealerships in the United States has a registered member in the DrivingSales community.

*Vendor Neutral Policy: Dedicated solely to making dealerships more profitable, while also providing benefit to automakers and the industry as a whole, DrivingSales adheres to a strict vendor neutral policy through each of its channels. This means the company only provides unbiased information, not ‘pay-to-play’ follow up services -- and never accepts payment in exchange for media coverage or lets potential advertisers dictate messaging or create bias in any of its channels.

DrivingSales Media Relations:

Melanie Webber (melanie@mwebbcom.com), mWEBB Communications, 424.603.4340

Angela Jacobson (angela@mwebbcom.com), mWEBB Communications, 714.454.8776