NEW YORK -

Auto Remarketing’s inaugural Certified Pre-Owned Dealer of the Year received an unexpected marketing boost from one of Hollywood’s most famous actresses.

Paragon Honda’s Brian Benstock reportedly has been flooded with inquiries because of what Jennifer Aniston did during a recent episode of The View.

According to a Brandweek report, Aniston was asked during the TV show about an item published in The New York Daily News about her looking to buy a $15 million penthouse apartment in Greenwich Village. After show hosts handed her a copy of the newspaper, Aniston perused the article while a full-page ad for Paragon Honda was shown directly into the camera.

“And through that stroke of luck, Paragon Honda got the best kind of product placement it could have asked for: its ad in front of millions of Aniston’s fans,” Brandweek declared.

Paragon Honda has been Honda’s top dealer for CPO sales volume each year since 2007, while Paragon Acura has been Acura’s top CPO seller each year since 2008, according to Dan Crowe, national remarketing manager for the automaker.

Benstock shared his delight about the newspaper ad choice for that particular day.

“Thank God that we went with a full-page ad that day. If we had orchestrated the whole thing, we couldn’t have done it so well,” Benstock told Brandweek.
Benstock thinks it’s too early to tell if Aniston’s inadvertent plug will result in more sales of new, certified or used models.

“We have been getting a tremendous amount of calls from industry insiders asking us how we pulled this off,” Benstock shared.

During last year’s CPO Forum, Benstock received Auto Remarketing’s inaugural CPO Dealer of the Year Award presented by vAuto. The Paragon stores have certainly been winning in the CPO market these days, and others have taken notice.

For one, Crowe said he believes the store has a keen awareness of the “value” it gains from the CPO segment.

“It’s allowed them to expand their ownership base significantly,” Crowe shared last year, also crediting Benstock for “always thinking outside the box” for ways to drive dealership traffic.

“Last year, Paragon’s aggressive marketing helped them grow from No 17 to the No. 1 Honda and Acura retailer with the most new and certified pre-owned sales of any retailer in the country,” noted Sean Wolfington, owner of Tier 10 Marketing.com, Paragon’s marketing company.

The Brandweek story about Paragon Honda is available here.