Here’s How REO Trucks’ Founder Reacted To My Crazy Ideas For His Startup Brand

I’m sure the startup REO Trucks is going to face a lot of challenges. It’s a rather new concept for an “analog” truck, but I can see a number of different ways the fledgling company could really communicate its brand message without the time and expense of having to build hundreds of brick-and-mortar dealers.

It doesn’t matter how good or cool your product is if it isn’t promoted in the right way. It’s more than advertising, though: the way you present the physical object needs to be as strong as all of the other marketing. That’s especially true with cars. Maybe Carvana can successfully sell a bunch of cars sight-unseen, but that’s with products that potential buyers already know, have seen in person, and likely have even driven at dealers during their research. A brand-new type of vehicle? You likely aren’t going to get away from presenting it to shoppers in person.

I’ve actually presented some ideas for the selling experience (and the truck itself) to Zach DeBerdanardi, the CEO and Founder of REO, and you might be surprised to hear what he said to a certain person (me) who never should have been given a copy of Photoshop.

There Was No Saturn “Genius Bar”

How do you convince a person that the computer you’re selling is worth more than some cheaper PC clone, or that this new and expensive telephone in your product portfolio with a touch screen can change your life? That’s the challenge that Apple faced twenty years ago, and part of their solution was an all-new kind of selling environment to match these all-new products. The Apple Store was more than a shop: it was an experience. That’s something you need with a product that flips the script on the establishment.

With cars, that’s happened a few times. The most notable example might be Saturn, the GM brand with cars built at a separate factory (at least initially) that the brand sold with fixed, no-haggle sticker prices in showrooms staffed by salespeople who didn’t walk up and harass you the minute you set foot on the lot.

It was a magical place where the experience almost overshadowed the rather lackluster cars. The dealership was transformed from what most shoppers saw as a living hell to a friendly family-style home you’d go to for barbeques they’d often host on Saturdays:

REO trucks could take a similar tack. The concept that founder Zach DeBernardi has is an affordable series of light trucks, an idea not unlike the new Slate pickup, but DeBernardi’s will apparently be gasoline-powered and feature four-wheel drive. He also claims a starting price of around $22,000. If you ever wanted an eighties Toyota Hilux to be reborn, this might be it. My guess, however, is few people will lay down any cash without experiencing the truck and understanding the benefits.

Of course, making a new truck will require all the cash that DeBernardi can find from investors; how can get a physical presence with the least cost possible? Also, how can REO really tell the story differently than any other brand?

Don’t Take My Stuff Too Seriously

Full disclosure: Our own Jason Torchinsky has interviewed REO founder Zach DeBernardi several times. In the Autopian podcast he appeared on, Jason presented some of the ideas that I had shown in an earlier post guessing what the REO might look like. Zach was intrigued by a number of the design ideas I’d shown for the truck, such as optional lower storage bins and the interior details. During the Carbage podcast, he actually requested these be sent over to him.

Torch was dumb enough to let me have Zach’s email. Big mistake. I forwarded my ideas (which you can see here), to which DeBernardi responded rather quickly.

Really appreciate you sending all of this over! It takes a lot of time to design vehicles and you’ve put a lot of work into this!

I’ve gone ahead and forwarded this over to our design partner so that they can take a look at everything you sent.
We’re well under way right now but it could be early enough to make some changes.

Thanks again, and let me know if you need anything else. My line’s always open!

Zach probably didn’t realize how much precious time I am willing to waste for free on drawing up ill-conceived sketches after work, so he was about to get carpet-bombed with far more dumb ideas he hadn’t bargained for.

Mind you, we still don’t know what the drivetrain and other detailed specs of the REO will be; a press release stated that designer Frank Stephenson is working on the design, but the final aesthetics are still very much a mystery. To be very clear: the trucks that I am showing in my renderings are NOT the ones that REO will apparently be releasing images of shortly. I have no idea what those will look like; I simply needed to come up with trucks to act as placeholders.

To do that, I followed the style of the Toyota Hilux Champ that Zach claimed he was using for inspiration.

He mentions the Land Cruiser 70 Series as influential to his idea of REO; the Toyota that hasn’t really changed much since 1984:

This is the “placeholder” REO I made up:

I’ve probably taken my placeholder truck too far in the industrial direction with not only sealed beams but off-the-shelf items like box turn signals and taillights so the sum of all the exterior lighting would barely be over 100 bucks (and available at Amazon or AutoZone). Still, in a world where I was just told that the headlights on my current old car are $6000 a piece, cheap lights would be nice, no?

Anyway, try to ignore the overall looks of “my” trucks and just evaluate the selling concepts and thought process. Know that REO is going to have a lot of different thinking, but be aware that absolutely none of what I’m showing is even remotely real.

Toy Cars, Magnetic Graphics, Coloring Books, And Whatever It Takes

If you go into most car dealerships today, there are far fewer display fixtures than there were twenty years ago. Touch screens or just QR codes have replaced almost all of these. The ethos of the REO is to be a low-tech “like it used to be” truck, so I think the physical displays used to demonstrate the features should be rather similar. Here’s the full display wall I’d suggest for an REO Experience Center:

In one of the sections, I’d like to have scale model (maybe 3D-printed) trucks in all of the available colors that you can switch out things like wheels and snap-on accessories like “sport” bars to see what your new truck might look like with your selected options. There are even coloring books for the kids (or adults) like “The Brave Little REO” or “The Little REO Saves The Day.”

How about a way for the potential buyer to configure the interior and specifically the dashboard? I’ve got no clue as to what REO is really doing, but earlier I had suggested a modular instrument panel layout where you could add whatever accessories that you wanted (or even upgrade later):

We’ve even got the optional “ball cooler” vents that Zach is promising in the real REO:

If REO were to do something like this, the display wall would have a mock dashboard with accessories (tach, radios, screens) on shelves that you could physically pop in to see what your new truck will look like.

We could possibly even do the same thing for the rest of the interior, if REO is considering doing anything like I had suggested with upgradeable seats and door panels (or partial door panels on the base model). Interior mockups such as the ones below could be inside the Experience Center:

This way you wouldn’t need to have one of every kind of trim level REO out in the parking lot to show customers.

Also, there would be a large video display in one section and another with magnetic graphics that you can add to the side of the real REO trucks to see what they look like before ordering.

Actually, if they sat in recessed areas, then they might be able to be used as actual graphics on the truck.

Even with the recessed areas, the graphics might not stay in place through a car wash, but they’d be so easy to change you could even do seasonal ones for fun!

The question you have now is, where would these displays go? What if REO has no initial budget to build dealerships, or really doesn’t want the standard concept of a “dealership” at all? Here’s what they could do.

Inside The Box Thinking

Driving through most “dealer rows” in urban areas of America, I notice a trend. First of all, they’re often surrounded by two things: struggling retail mall stores and large, empty office buildings with equally empty parking lots. Isn’t there some way that a startup could take advantage of these spaces?

We know that Tesla has had a presence in malls over time, so that’s a natural place for REO to build an Experience Center, too. That’s especially good for exposing the product to people who have never seen it and might not even be actively looking for vehicles but happen to be just hitting The Gap or Banana Republic for their sale (hint: they always have some kind of sale).

Hey, how about a pop-up shop in a retail space like Costco? You could have a sales kiosk inside:

There could even be a test drive center out in the parking lot:

If you really wanted a standalone facility, there’s no reason REO couldn’t make Experience Centers in vacant parking lots with repurposed shipping containers. Here’s a way to create an inexpensive facility that might be set up in a day or two at most. The industrial aesthetic really matches the feel of the whole REO mindset of everything you need and nothing you don’t.

This mock floorplan below shows the layout with modular wood plank “deck” flooring used around the 20-foot and 40-foot “high cube” containers. The garages would likely need more vertical space for lift access, but if that’s the case, we could add on taller structures. Honestly, there’s an almost endless supply of old containers out there, so expanding the layout would hardly be a major task.

If there’s as much room as I’m imagining in a vacant business parking lot, I can see setting up obstacles like those from the traveling Bronco event below; a great way to show the capabilities of the REO’s 4WD system.

Maybe in the future REO would build more permanent structures on purchased land instead of shipping containers on leased parking lots, but why? Somehow a setup like this might get more attention for the product anyway, and it follows the “simple is better” approach of the truck.

Surprisingly, Zach responded rather positively to all of this Experience Center junk I sent and was happy for me to share, as he said to me here in one exchange that can be published:

I like the shipping container idea but we’re not committed to any architectural style as of just yet. We are definitely going to be looking at service and experience centers.
Thank you for staying in touch! We are hard at work on our targets for delivering design reveal on 11/16. We think it’s quite an amazing looking truck.

Simple Is Fun

I’m glad that Zach seemed receptive to these ideas, but don’t expect to see the finished products looking like this. We don’t know exactly when we’ll see REO trucks themselves, though DeBernardi is obviously single-minded in his quest to make them a reality.

As tough as the odds are for REO, I’m absolutely going to hold out hope for the brand’s success. I will say that twenty years ago I never, ever expected to see Tesla cars in every other driveway, yet here we are. I’d much rather see a new five-speed, four-cylinder gasoline 4WD mini truck than any new Tesla EV. Wouldn’t you?

Top graphic images: The Bishop; DepositPhotos.com