A Career of Disruption

“True disruption means threatening your existing product line and your past investments. Breakthrough products disrupt current lines of businesses.” – Peter Diamandis 

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Owen Moon, CEO of FIXED OPS DIGITAL and a new Expert Panel Contributor for Dealer Marketing Magazine.

For most of my 22-year career in the automotive industry I have considered myself to be a disruptor.

My career started in early 2000 when I was hired to help an automotive focused advertising agency create and sell a comprehensive sub-prime program. For the next few years, hundreds of dealerships across the country utilized our program to break into what was at the time a relatively new, but lucrative market. This program included everything from Marketing, F&I, Inventory Management, Software, Leads Handling, and even BDC Training. I would spend the first few years of my career travelling around the country helping our dealer partners implement this program into their dealership culture. Looking back, I considered this experience to be the best education anyone could’ve gotten to learn the auto industry from the inside out.

A few years later I once again found myself in a unique situation as one of the early adopters of personalized database mailers. At the time using variable data fields to personalize the information for each customer was a relatively new concept. I remember when we ran our 1st “buyback” direct mail campaign and helped a dealership sell 35 new KIA’s in a weekend utilizing a target list of 2,000 previous customers. In a weekend we helped sell as many new KIA’s as they usually sold in a month! Over the next few years, we would develop and execute multiple personalized database mailer strategies for dealerships across the country! 

As technology began to evolve the “next thing” again presented itself. I was introduced to a new strategy called GeoFencing. Geofencing is a real-time location-based marketing tactic that uses geolocation data to target users within an established geographic area. Then delivering ads based on where they are or in what locations they have previously visited. I moved my focus to helping dealerships execute targeted geofencing campaigns. I also spent a lot of this time speaking at conferences and 20 groups showing dealerships the power of this new type of mobile marketing.

Then came 2018. The auto industry was booming! Dealerships were spending most of their marketing budgets utilizing digital strategies and the industry was full of vendors and agencies who were more than willing to help! In such a crowded vendor environment I again found myself in a situation focusing on a new concept. This time in the service department. FIXED OPS DIGITAL was born and for the first 12-18 months there was just as much educating going on as there was executing.

As FIXED OPS DIGITAL started to grow, we took pride as being the industry leaders in online service marketing. As 2020 rolled around we knew that service marketing was going to continue to get more attention. We had no idea that both Covid and the new vehicle inventory shortage would only magnify this! Today FIXED OPS DIGITAL is the Premier Service Marketing & Technology Company servicing over 650 dealerships in the United States and Canada. 

Are you a disruptor?! Then I applaud you. Disruptors are risk takers. Disruptors are educators.

The challenge with being a disruptor is that the first couple years are usually the hardest. Trying to educate and gain dealership adoption can be tough. As a new Expert Panel Contributor for Dealer Marketing Magazine, with the opportunities and challenges today’s automotive market is facing, I look forward to bringing my years of experience being a disruptor to provide valuable insight.