Online car buying service Edmunds is out with its first-ever digital video campaign which it is calling The Absurdity of Haggling. There aren’t many things over which we haggle on price any longer. Aside from items at a yard sale and cars, we pretty much just pay what’s on the sticker.
But Edmunds, which is all about haggle-free car shopping with its Price Promise feature, wants to convince us that haggling over the price of a car is just silly. As silly as haggling over the price of milk, squash or heavy cream. And to do so, they went the hidden camera route at a grocery store checkout counter.
As shoppers went through the checkout process, a checkout clerk, played by an actor, tries to convince the shoppers to haggle over the price of the items they wish to buy. He tells one woman her frozen squash is going to cost $9 because there’s been a run on the product. He does the same to a guy trying to buy milk and another guy trying to buy cream.
The shoppers are, of course, dumbfounded and have no idea how to respond. Because, as we all know, no one haggles over the price of groceries. Which, of course, is the very message Edmunds is promoting here; no one should haggle over the price of a car.
The four videos debuted on YouTube’s TrueView platform. Additionally, Edmunds.com will issue survey results related to haggling and it’s testing an influencer program. In that pilot program, 5 to 8 “social tastemakers” will experience the Price Promise purchasing process and share their findings on social channels.
Watch how it all unfolds in the montage below:
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