What Dealers Are Getting Wrong About Plate Frames in 2024.

The dealer-branded license plate frame has been around for ages. It is one of those passive marketing strategies that is pretty unique to the car business. You don't see people leaving their realtor signs by the front door of their house after the purchase is done, nor do you have a Best Buy sticker on the front of your television to remind you where you purchased it.

I've always been fascinated that consumers will spend tens of thousands of dollars on a vehicle and be perfectly content to display what can be, at times, terribly horrendous dealer messaging while they drive around. This is not to say that dealer plate frames don't serve a purpose. A plate frame can protect the license plate from damage, corrosion and provide a more finished look to the front and back of the vehicle. In fact, I don't think dealers should get rid of the plate frame at all, however I do want to make a case for some common sense changes and updates to this longstanding basic marketing exercise.

As I write this, I'm looking out the window of a coffee shop at a few different examples of license plate frames that support my case:

1. A relatively new Subaru Forester has a plate frame from from a nearby Subaru dealer. I'm sitting about 10 feet away and both the car and I are stationary. I can read the "Subaru of xxx" wording just fine, however I have to squint to read the text on the top of the frame which turns out to be the street address of the dealership. The blue Subaru logo is crammed in beside as an afterthought.
2. A four-year old VW Golf has a plate frame from a Honda dealer. The frame is black and uses contrasting white and red text and multiple fonts. Contained in the frame is the name of the dealer, the Honda brand wording, the Honda "H" logo, the dealership website URL (including www), the dealership phone number and the city where the dealership is located. Again, I have to squint to see everything except the Honda logo.
3. A brand-new Mercedes-Benz GLE is beside the Golf. It has a black plate frame that says "Mercedes-Benz" at the bottom in proper OEM compliant font and the dealer group name at the top. That's it, that's all.

Now, putting our 2024 dealership marketing hat on, we quickly remember that every month our dealership, either through our own group marketing department or an external provider, should be spending a decent amount of money on SEM, SEO and social media to ensure our store comes up quickly when searched and remains top-of-mind throughout the prospect's continued online journey. We also know that the majority of our initial prospects arrive via leads on our website and third-party digital platforms.

Our prospects are finding us via their smartphones, tablets and desktops. Can you even imagine a prospect driving down the road, seeing a car they like, and trying to commit the phone number on the plate frame to memory or dial it in the moment? I don't think so. As long as you are confident in your digital strategy and your dealership shows up well in your area when searched, the only information you need on the plate frame should be your franchise brand and the name of your store.

Customers will be more likely to leave your classy and uncluttered plate frame on the car, and prospects who notice the plate frame have all the information they need, as they will simply type "Honda of xx" into Google and you'll come up instantly. Your plate frame will also be easier for other drivers to notice while on the road, and increase your dealership's or dealer group's passive brand awareness the more often they see it. Complex frames are more likely to be forgotten.

Another pet peeve of mine is unnecessary duplicate logos. In the case of the Subaru and Mercedes examples, brand logo is proudly integrated into the vehicle's front grille for everyone to see. The plate frame doesn't need to have another Mercedes star or Subaru blue logo. In the case of the Mercedes plate frame, the "Mercedes-Benz" script in OEM font compliments the star logo and completes the branding in a way that makes sense. To have multiple Mercedes stars would appear redundant and reduce the brand's impact and value.

Before you hit the "order" button on that next shipment of plate frames, I encourage you to consider the messaging you really need in order to make an effective impact on the market. Like everything else in our world, license plate frames are getting more expensive. Implementing a plate frame makeover for your dealership using the above advice should take relatively little time and money, make your customers proud to display the frames, and bring more traffic to your digital showroom.