by volunteers, including people who volunteer as fosters. Fosters care for animals at their homes for a few weeks or months until the animal gets adopted. In the last few years, a lot of rescues have shifted to promoting their animals on Instagram and Facebook, which serve as free marketing for getting their animals adopted. The Pet-Rescue-AutoShop.com campaign is also supported by many members of the Alliance of Auto Manufacturing that are partnering with animal shelters. In addition, Subaru has joined with the ASPCA to help find thousands of animals their forever homes, and donated nearly $16.5 million to support shelters and adoption events. In conjunction with their dog rescue efforts, Pet-Rescue-AutoShop.com supports local volunteer organizations that are too small to raise substantial funds themselves, and would fall through the cracks without us. “We network online 24/7 with business owners to provide instant assistance, boarding, medical care, food, medicine, training and trans-
port for desperate animals,” Schillinger said. “We are the place to go when there is nowhere else to turn. We rescue pets, and we rescue the rescuers—shelters and other animal welfare groups that are currently inundated with new pets.” You’ve likely heard about AMBER Alerts. Pet-Rescue-AutoShop. com has developed the same system for pets—Area Missing: Pet Emergency Response (AMPER) Alerts—which connects auto body shops with an assigned AMPER area-alert team to offer advice and assistance for confidentiality, as well as to transport pets to shelters, rescues and private owners. “It is designed to achieve a uniform, interoperable network of plans across the country, and to minimize potentially deadly delays because of confusion among varying participants,” Schillinger said. Every authorized AutoShop facility will have an email contact and telephone number assigned for AMPER alerts. Participants receive alerts of a recently lost or missing pet. If the pet is found/rescued, most do not go back home but instead go to a transitional facility, a Pet Halfway House.
As the name implies, it is not a dog pound, but closer to a foster home. For an AMPER Alert to be effective in recovering a missing pet, Pet-Rescue-AutoShop.com must have enough information to believe an immediate broadcast to the public will enhance the efforts to locate the pet. This element requires as much descriptive information as possible about the lost pet. Issuing alerts in the absence of significant information that the pet is actually lost could lead to abuse of the system and ultimately weaken its effectiveness. Vice President of Industry Relations at Automotive Service Association (ASA) Tony Molla sees real value in the Pet-Rescue-AutoShop. com campaign for several reasons. “It’s a great idea and much-needed,” he said. “We have two dogs, Luna and Lola, and if we ever lost them, we would be crushed. It’s simple—a dog is found and quickly an alert goes out and shops get to play an important role. Pet-Rescue-AutoShop.com is a great way for shops to help people and dogs to find their homes or new homes for dogs who have lost their way and just need a break.”
ASA Announces Podcast Series The first episode of the Automotive Service Association (ASA)’s Technology and Telematics Podcast Series was released Dec. 6 on the ASA podcast channel. The episode features a discussion between Wayne Weikel, senior director of state affairs for the Alliance of Automotive Innovation, and Bob Redding, ASA’s Washington, D.C., representative. Redding and Weikel give an overview of the political issues surrounding electric vehicles, including an update on the recently passed infrastructure package and the in-progress budget reconciliation package. This podcast is the first in a series of podcasts entitled “A Changing Fleet,” which will feature conversations with industry leaders about the automotive industry’s shift towards electric vehicles. Source: ASA
4 Industry Veterans Form Automotive Market Data by Auto Remarketing Staff
Industry veterans Brian Reed, Steve Greenfield, Andrew Gordon and Pete Batten formed a team they’ve called Automotive Market Data. And the team launched what it believes is the first-ever digital retailing market share database to inform dealers, investors and vendors—in real-time—about the automotive digital retailing landscape. According to a news release, the database evaluates more than 35 digital retailers each day across approximately 18,000 U.S. automobile dealer websites to identify the top digital retailers among dealers, predominant digital retailers by brand and leading technology providers in the automotive space, as well as unique digital retailing trends and emerging technologies. “The pandemic hyper-accelerated automotive digital retail adoption, which created a need for comprehensive, up-to-date information to help industry professionals make highly informed decisions,” said Reed, who is an industry advisor at Automotive Ventures and partner at Automotive
Market Data. “More than ever, dealers need to know which digital retailing tools to use, investors need to know where to commit their money, and vendors need to know how they stack up against the competition. We provide answers to these questions and more.” The group shared a sample list of the independent, third-party reporting provided by Automotive Market Data, potentially including not limited to: • Digital retailer growth rate, churn rate and market penetration. • The digital retailing tool(s) currently being used, or have just been added, to particular dealership websites. • Digital retailer dealer count changes over specified periods of time and within specific geographic regions. • Digital retailer market share by automotive manufacturer. • Dealer and/or manufacturer customer longevity among digital retailers. The Automotive Market Data team also is looking to provide the industry with dealership contact informa-
42 JANUARY 2022 AUTOBODY NEWS / autobodynews.com
tion, vehicle-specific data, new and used-vehicle market pricing, cost of ownership information and vehicle history reports. “Despite its importance, a complete picture of the digital retailing landscape didn’t exist until now,” said Greenfield, founder and CEO of Automotive Ventures and partner at Automotive Market Data. “Historically, it’s been next to impossible to identify top digital retailers by dealer and OEM market share, yet information like this is vastly helpful to industry professionals who are looking to get ahead of the technology curve and stay there,” Greenfield continued. “This is the precise reason we created the digital retailing market share database.” Automotive Market Data is a collaborative of veteran automotive industry professionals who have served in various leadership and entrepreneurial roles throughout their careers. Reed spent 18 years at Daimler-Benz before serving as president of PeopleFirst.com, which was acquired by CapitalOne. He was also the founder and CEO of F&I Ex-
press, which was acquired by Cox Automotive. Greenfield served as TrueCar’s senior vice president of strategy and business development, and Autotrader’s vice president of product management and business development, overseeing the acquisitions of vAuto, Kelley Blue Book, HomeNet Automotive, VinSolutions and DealerScience. Gordon, adviser at Automotive Ventures and partner at Automotive Market Data, is a third generation Honda dealer. He served as founder and CEO of DealerScience, acquired by TrueCar in 2018. Batten is a dealer retail technology and data advisor with more than 20 years’ experience in vehicle retailing who has served as general manager for several automotive software brands, including Cox Automotive Digital Retail, Chrome Data and Automotive Lease Guide. He was also chief product officer at LeadVenture. To learn more about the information Automotive Market Data offers the industry, visit http://www. automotivemarketdata.com.
