Magazine for the professional tire industry
Issue link: https://mtd.epubxp.com/i/630954
MTD January 2016 Discount Tire and we'll start to see some raw material prices start to pick back up, and infation start to show itself a bit. Halle: Pricing is quite cyclical. Te industry has been that way forever. MTD: Would you say our industry is somewhat recession proof ? Halle: I think so. People still have to use tires in a recession, although we don't do as well in recessionary periods as we do in up periods. MTD: Is sports marketing an integral part of your mar- keting strategy? In the past, you've sponsored the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Phoenix Suns, and you are a Team Penske sponsor for NASCAR's XFinity and Sprint Cup Series. Zuieback: NASCAR is the main focus. Beyond that we don't really do a lot of sports advertising. Baseball and basketball was a fringe thing. (To see how Discount Tire partnered with the Suns in 2013, check out the "Road Trip with the Suns" television commercial at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltVPDTa0ytQ.) Halle: Te NASCAR sponsorships are great for us because NASCAR has fans, both men and women, all over the country where we have stores. When we have a race car outside the store, everybody stops to look at it. Parents put the kids in it and take pictures. It's a great atraction, and we think the marketing cost is reasonable. Zuieback: It relates and is relevant to our business. MTD: Looking at your overall marketing budget, does your NASCAR sponsorship represent the biggest chunk? Zuieback: No. Te biggest expense is probably the Internet space, like most companies today. Te Googles of the world have it fgured out. Halle: If you look at all the diferent media, we advertise through a lot of them. MTD: How is Discount Tire dealing with social media? Zuieback: We embraced the Internet many years ago, and were early adopters in the social media space as well. You experiment with it, learn a bit, fnd out that one's not so good, but this one's good. You fnd your way through it. Everything is always over-hyped. Halle: We keep trying to take our message somewhere it hasn't been, and make it clearer for everybody. We're working on that constantly. MTD: Do you have goals as to how many stores you'd like to open? Zuieback: If you look at our past five years or so, and continue down that road, I'd say between 30 and 50 stores a year. It has been working well for us. MTD: Has the volatility in the real estate market died down as we've fought our way out of the recession? Halle: It's starting to pick up around the country. For a while it was sof and we were able to buy land a litle cheaper. But it's coming back up now. Most of the places we look at are geting close to where it was a few years ago before the downturn. MTD: Do you still personally check out every site, Bruce? Halle: Yes. MTD: How about you, Michael? I would think with your fnancial background, you would be heavily involved in business development with Bruce. Michael: I used to go on all of the trips, but now with my other responsibilities, I don't have the opportunity to do that as much. We sit in on real estate meetings together and review that information, but he's been doing it very well for 55 years, so what am I going to add? Not a lot. I sit there and learn. MTD: Given your size, do you bring outside consultants in on a regular basis to take a look at how you are running your company? Zuieback: No. We've never brought in a consultant for the operational side of the business. Halle: We've been successful all these years without outside counsel. So why do we need it? Let me put it another way. Years ago when we were a much younger company, and had 10 or 15 stores, no capital and were on the brink of being in business or not, no outside people were running in to advise me and help me. But afer you get big and successful, they all want to. MTD: Does anything that happens in the tire industry surprise either of you? Halle: It doesn't surprise us, but it's interesting to see how the vendors are trying to get online now and go directly to consumers. Tat's not a big surprise, it's just happening and it will continue. MTD: But that makes them competitors of yours. Halle: Yes, it sure does. Zuieback: It changes some of the dialogue from time to time. MTD: Is there anything you want to add about your goals at Discount Tire, Michael? Zuieback: Te gist of it is Discount Tire has been a very successful privately held company. We are going to stay the course. I have been blessed to be a part of the family and to help carry that on for all our wonderful people across our company. Tis is my responsibility. ■ Vice Chairman and former CEO Gary Van Brunt (right) was on hand to watch Zuieback give hot laps. 74