(This column originally appeared in The Guardian)
A mysterious person leaving miniature ducks around the office. An employee who eats the food at a potluck lunch without making his own contribution. An award that goes to a worker’s head. A throwback to paperwork when the computers go down. Or my favorite: a visit to another showroom in “disguise” to check out the competition.
It’s The Dealership, a weekly TikTok series brought to you by Mohawk Chevrolet. It’s filmed just like the popular TV show The Office. And it’s a hit, gaining close to 6m views in just the past couple of months. Mohawk may be selling Chevrolets. But its marketing team is producing a Ferrari.
The Dealership is the brainchild of the recent college grad Grace Kerber, who handles the scripting, directing, graphic design, strategy and planning of the show’s content. According to one episode, Kerber is also a choreographer, but pay that no mind. Viewers just know her as Grace, the protagonist of the series who coincidentally looks like Dawn, the original receptionist from Ricky Gervais’s UK show.
“Me and my teammate Ben Bushen make the episodes,” Kerber told the social media strategist Rachel Karten in a blog profiling the series. “We will have an idea (sometimes inspired from real life events at Mohawk) and think it through to get a loose storyboard of what the episode will be about.” Kerber says she helps direct everyone, “but they’re all so naturally hilarious they don’t even need it”.
What makes the series so special? Kerber is endearing. Jasmine, Lukas, Michael, Ben, Justin, George and the other employees whose day jobs are selling and servicing cars are actually not so bad at play-acting, particularly when you realize that they’re doing it all by improvisation. Ben’s shaky camera and realistic lighting (no small feat) really does resemble the look and feel of The Office. The sound is surprisingly professional.
Sure, the show lacks polish. But the episodes — which are generally under five minutes — are true to their theme. And there are definitely funny moments.
Like Kerber’s presentation to her boss for ways to improve the showroom (“plants” and “inspiration writing on the wall”) that inadvertently includes a drawing of her crush at the other showroom she visited. Her love of ‘rados (as in the Chevy Silverado and Colorado … get it?). Her inability to gracefully get in or out of the trucks her dealership sells, despite her aim to target more women buyers. Even the team’s tongue-in-cheek response to their computer systems being down (a likely nod to the June ransomware attack that crippled thousands of auto dealerships across the country) showed how they respond to a problem with poise …and humor.
Kerber says that the series’ focus is “promoting our dealership in a way that most dealerships don’t” with the end result of selling more cars. And, given the increased online traffic created by their videos, I don’t doubt that. But Mohawk has succeeded in a much more important way: showing not only customers, but prospective employees how great it is to work there.
All I hear from my clients are complaints about the tight labor market and their challenges attracting and retaining good talent. I’m not sure how easy it is for a car dealership in upstate New York to find and motivate employees. But after watching The Dealership, who wouldn’t want to work at Mohawk? The people there seem great.
These are people you’d like to hang out with and have a laugh, and they come across as caring workers. I’m not sure you’d find a lot of “quiet quitters” at this place. If anything, Kerber is single-handedly destroying the argument for working from home. Great businesses like Mohawk have great cultures, and you can’t just do that remotely.
While Kerber deservedly gets the credit for this successful marketing campaign, let’s not ignore the company’s owner, Andrew Guelcher, who (I’m assuming) greenlighted the project. More than a few of my clients would have rejected the idea of paying for equipment and then tying up their employees for hours each week to make a TikTok video series, let alone going along with the vision of someone just nine months out of college.
Like the series’s inspiration, will we one day see Guelcher burning his foot on a George Foreman grill? An office Olympics? A cameo from Steve Carell himself? With this kind of audience, and Kerber’s ingenuity, I wouldn’t be surprised. One thing I’m certain will happen: an uptick in sales and a line of people wanting to work at Mohawk Chevrolet.
