Feel Better Bears is back at the All American Auto Mall in Old Bridge! For the past few years, we've partnered with New Jersey 101.5 to collect tens of thousands of new, unwrapped stuffed animals to be distributed by the New Jersey State Policeman's Benevolent Association (PBA). These stuffed animals are utilized by New Jersey first responders at the scene of an emergency to instantly comfort children.
This amazing event runs from now until Christmas. Collection boxes can be found throughout our location. There are ways to donate online as well. Visit this site for more information: nj1015.com/bears.
Feel Better Bears is back at the All American Auto Mall in Old Bridge! For the past few years, we've partnered with New Jersey 101.5 to collect tens of thousands of new, unwrapped stuffed animals to be distributed by the New Jersey State Policeman's Benevolent Association (PBA). These stuffed animals are utilized by New Jersey first responders at the scene of an emergency to instantly comfort children.
This amazing event runs from now until Christmas. Collection boxes can be found throughout our location. There are ways to donate online as well. Visit this site for more information: nj1015.com/bears.
All right, first off, Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. It's Thanksgiving week. Today's Tuesday, November 23. But obviously, Thanksgiving is this Thursday, and the dealership is closed on Thanksgiving, but then we'll be open normal hours Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. Everyday seems to have a label this weekend. But I'm, I'm Jason Savino, the Marketing Director for the All American Auto Group and this is the All American Auto Mall in Old Bridge Updates podcast. This is episode number 65. It's gonna be a fairly quick one. Today, I just have one main topic I want to touch on on a short week here. Um, so let's get into it last week, episode 64. It was a really good one really popular one too, in terms of downloads, and the metrics that I get on these podcasts. But it was I had my brother Nick on who's our fixed ops director. He's been on a lot. We joked about him becoming a regular on this, which we're probably going to do, it's just hard with our schedules right now. And like a short week, this week, how I just kind of have to bang it out right now. It's early Tuesday morning. So it's tough with the schedules to get us to win the room consistently each week. But last week he was on, we recap the Baltimore toe show, which we both attended. So if you're interested in our all american journal bridge dealership and hearing about our trip to Baltimore, the Baltimore Tosho in general. We do, we do a little recap of that. And then Nick talks about winter service. So obviously, he's our fixed ops director, which fixed ops means basically Parts and Service and other operations within the dealership. So he talks about the tire pressure monitoring light coming on when cold weather hits and freezing weather. He talks about winterizing your vehicle or getting your vehicle ready for winter and some stuff like that we talked about remote starts and you know the best thing to do to defrost your vehicle and stuff like that. So very informative episode like I said, it's one of our better performing one so far in terms of downloads and views and listens and stuff like that when it comes to podcasts. So good content there from my brother Nick on that one. The only thing I want to touch on in terms of inventory is it's coming in still slowly, slowly but surely like it's been um but Broncos for whatever reason, here in old bridge or Ford side we've gotten a bunch of Broncos in so we do have some available for sale for the first time in a really long time in terms of having between five and 10 for sale at the same time. So you know, we have a couple of first editions so those are the highest trim levels and outer banks are two and you know, a good spread of colors, options and stuff like that. So if you're interested if you've been waiting for the Bronco waiting for it to become a stock unit and for sale we do have some of them I'm not sure if they'll make it past the weekend. But that's how inventory goes right now for other model lineup. Here in oral bridge location, you know the Ford side we do have some SUVs coming in for sure. escapes edges, stuff like that, the F 150 We do have an okay amount of inventory of and again all this is relative when I say an okay amount of inventory, we used to have 100 F 150s We used to sell 60 of them a month. Now we have you know 10 or less. So, inventory is still a major problem it's going to be until into well into next year. So obviously when I'm saying stuff is okay or good, it's relative to how it's been. I don't I think we're out of rock bottom in terms of inventory. So I think we're trending up and getting out of that rock bottom stage for from the last few months. Especially on the Subaru side. Subaru was hit hard these last few months with inventory. And it's still listen again, relatively, relatively speaking. It's on an upward trend, but it's still very, very low. So our Subaru CPOs have been killing it for us. You know a lot of them in and a lot of them going out. So that's been a very hot piece on our super side. Super CPAs have always done really well but we've done a really good job of acquiring them through various means a lot of customer lease returns in trade ins which is great to say. And then you know being able to certify them and super has one of the better certification programs and obviously Subarus last forever and they're very, very reliable vehicles. So super CPUs are a great option right now, going into the holidays for sure. So that's kind of the inventory on both sides. We do have back to the Ford side, a bunch of specialty trucks, a couple more of them rolled in. So we have a Roush F 150 Or two, we have a, we still have that initial Black Widow and another Black Widow coming in a different color. We have a couple of Rocky Ridge F 150s coming. We did wrap a custom Mustang in a really, really nice flat back, flat, black matte. That's tongue twister there. And came out amazing. We literally got it back from the rap company, I believe on Friday night or Saturday night of last weekend. And customer came in saw it absolutely loved it and took it home. So that's how quick some of this stuff goes. I didn't even get a chance to post it on our social media pages. Shout out to my marketing team, they took pictures right away. They texted me the pictures, I check them out, they look great. I was going to post them and literally sold within an hour and I was told not to post at that point. So that's it's it's crazy out quick. Some inventory is moving and it's you know, it's happening. So let's get into the main part of it. So I want to talk about feel better bears. So we do this every year for the past few years. Now I can't remember exactly when we started I believe we've been doing it for about four years now. And it is in conjunction or in partnership with NJ one on 1.5, New Jersey 1.5 radio station, about by Townsquare media, great people over there. We do a lot of different events with them. They help us out with our Subaru loves pets event in October. So they're great people they get involved a lot with charity stuff and feel better bears is programmed to my knowledge that I believe they created in partnership with the New Jersey State PBA. And basically the program is that they get a bunch of businesses around New Jersey, and to put out donation collection boxes, and we collect new and unwrapped stuffed animal. Stuffed animals doesn't have to just be bears, but the title is feel better bears. So teddy bears stuffed animals, they get donated, we collect them, we give them to nj 1015. They kind of collect them all at their headquarters and then they provide them to the New Jersey State PBA and then the New Jersey State PVA will distribute them amongst their local municipalities all within New Jersey. So these, these stuffed animals stay in New Jersey, throughout New Jersey, in the local municipalities, for first responders and police officers. So basically, a first responder will have a stuffed animal in their squad car. And when they come up to a scene of an emergency, whether it's car accident, whether it's a house fire, whether it's you know, God forbid something worse, at a house, you know, anything any type of emergency scene, and there's a child on the scene, they're trained to immediately get a stuffed animal from their squad car and give it to the child to provide them with obviously instant comfort and, you know, amongst the scene of emergency and the confusion of everything, I can't even imagine being at a scene of an emergency like that as an adult but being there as a child with potentially you know, your family around your parents. A million things could be going through their heads and to get a teddy bear for instant comfort. I don't know to me, I get very emotional and talking about I think of my kids and if they were in that situation so I absolutely love this event. I think it's amazing. I think it's amazing for the first responders and I've talking talked with a bunch of them throughout this program because you know, a lot of them have come here we've done photo ops here we had news 12 Here, I think two years ago to cover it and I got to meet some great police officers high up in the New Jersey State PBA and you know a lot of our old bridge police officers here we're very close with them. We do a lot of charity stuff with them. And I've spoken with a lot of them about this and they say this program is absolutely amazing for them on a professional level because you know, you get trained all you want. This is kind of how they put it to me and you're trained to do certain things when you get to the scene of an emergency but seeing a child there, it just like there's no training that could prepare you for that. So this actually arms them with something where you know, it's kind of familiar to them. It comfort them as a first responder, they get the teddy bear stuffed animal, they give it to the child. And it's something right, it's not going to be the best thing for them at that scene of emergency in terms of fixing everything on the spot. It's not going to just wipe everything away, that's happening. But it's something. So I think that's the powerful x aspect of it. I know we did an article in the paper a couple years ago, and we had a really good quote from an old bridge police officer that kind of explained that where you know, it's not going to be it's not going to fix everything on the spot. But it's something and it could be everything in that moment to that child. And to that first responder again, because I can't even imagine. And that's why my heart goes out to first responders out there, I can't even imagine what that would be like to come to a scene of emergency see a child there, whatever the condition is, whatever's happening, whatever the situation is. So again, one of my favorite events, I love this. I'm been doing it now about four years, I think, and my numbers could be wrong, I should have looked them up. So I apologize. But I think the first year it was at least a few brands, then the next year grew a little bit the year before COVID. So I guess that would be late 2019. That year, I'm pretty sure we got close to 10,000 Stuffed animals collected. And that was our goal. And I think we either got there or we just missed it. But either way, I mean you're talking 10s of 1000s of stuffed animals collected for these first responders in New Jersey. And then last year COVID definitely affected a little bit in terms of people coming out and making the donations but nj 1015 said they got to about 7000 Last year, so still an amazing number. This year, I would love to see it closer to 10,000 Mark and just keep building up this collection of stuffed animals for these first responders. So you get more information about this program at nj 101 five.com backslash bears, again the program is called feel better bears we have these donation bins throughout our locations throughout New Jersey throughout our auto group. So if you're around the area and Old Bridge, you want to donate a new and unwrapped stuffed animal come by you'll see our bins posted pictures of them on our Instagram. If you have any questions or just want more information again go to that website NJ 101 five.com/bears. And there's a couple of options this year I know they started this last year because of COVID but you could actually buy a bear online or I should say stuffed animal you can buy stuffed animal online and donate it that way through New Jersey one on 1.5 So they set it up you know on their site they even say that the bears are sold that cost and nj 115 does not profit at all from the sale of the bear. So very nice thing that they set up so that can be found at that website. So if you can't make it to one of our locations to physically donate a stuffed animal you can buy them online. The drop off locations are listed on that page as well though like I said it's all of our all American locations throughout New Jersey. You know here in Old Bridge. The boxes are throughout the store. So our Ford showroom, the service departments our Subaru showroom and then our locations you know Point Pleasant brick Paramus Hackensack so throughout New Jersey, so a lot of opportunity. And then I know Trinity rehab is a company that always gets very involved with this, they have locations throughout New Jersey at all, but you'll see the full list on that website, if you do want to drop one off in person. And then there's a third option where you could actually buy bear, you know, bring it home. And then if you don't want to come into one of the locations actually dropped off, you could mail it in to NJ one on one five. They give the mailing address on that website. So a lot of different options to be able to donate. And again, this is one of my favorite events. So I'm going to keep pushing it you know, my marketing team knows to push it on social media, we'll all be posting about it. Our staff here I absolutely love it because they go big with purchasing stuffed animals as well for donations for this. So just a fantastic event. I highly recommend everybody read more about it. You know, go on and j one on one five and all American forge YouTube pages. We have recap videos and stuff from previous years a lot of good stuff coming out of this event. So that's what I wanted to talk about this episode. I love talking about this man. I love this event. I can't say it enough. But that's all I have for today. So we'll be back next week. Everybody have a happy Thanksgiving and a great weekend. Everyone can afford
Unknown:Good