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Mohawk Chevrolet's TikTok Is My Favorite TV ShowA car dealership in Ballston Spa, NY is turning out Emmy-worthy videos.
Imagine if The Office took place at a car dealership. And that Michael Scott was a 22-year-old recent grad named Grace. Instead of Scranton, PA it took place in Ballston Spa, NY. Replace awkward scenes of paper pitches and employee orientations with 38-point turns in a Silverado 2500 and a commercial shoot for the Blazer EV meant for “the female gaze”. Well, then you’d have the hit TikTok series “The Dealership” from Mohawk Chevrolet. The nine episode (and counting) season has a cumulative viewership of 5.7M on TikTok alone.
The series is helmed by Grace Kerber, the Digital Branding Creator at Mohawk Chevrolet, who is nine months into her first job out of college. She partners with Ben Bushen, who has shot video for the dealership’s marketing team for the past five years, after offering to edit a video a few weeks into a job as a delivery coordinator. Like with every good TV show, there are fans. “If this were on Netflix I’d binge it” “That’s it. I’m cancelling my HBO subscription, this is my new show.” “Mohawk Chevrolet needs to get picked up by Netflix ASAP because I can’t stop watching these😂” As more brands invest in and treat TikTok like TV, audiences pick up on it too. Notice how all of the comments are suggesting this is a “show” they’d watch on [insert popular streaming network]? I hope this interview with Grace inspires your social team to get in the writers room and start storyboarding.
Rachel Karten: First, would love to learn a bit about you—can you tell me about your current role and any previous social roles (or not) you've had? Grace Kerber: I am a Digital Branding Creator here at Mohawk Chevrolet and handle scripting, directing, graphic design, strategy, and planning of our content. This is my ninth month here at Mohawk and this is actually my first job after college! I had some experience with social media marketing from running my own art and apparel business that I started in college and that helped me so much coming into this position. RK: How would you describe Mohawk Chevrolet's social strategy? GK: We really focus on promoting our dealership in a way that most dealerships don’t. We make fun, entertaining, and informational videos that highlight our amazing staff and environment as a company rather than just posting our deals were offering that month. Many of our videos’ main focus isn’t on the cars we’re selling or the services we are offering—they really highlight the personalities of our customer-facing employees. These types of post create a connection and positive emotional response more than any static infographic post could.
Of course we have to be informing people of our vehicles and services, but we always think how can we do this in a way that people actually want to watch. It’s important to us that our community can connect with us on a more personal level. We find that translates to a very comfortable, welcoming vibe when they come into the dealership. If someone wants a new car or more specifically a new Chevy, they are going to get one, but what we ask ourselves when making our content is how do we make them want to buy from Mohawk specifically. RK: Talk to me about "The Dealership". What inspired you to make this series? GK: We had an employee bring miniature ducks into the dealership one day and recruited me to help her secretly spread them around. Everyone caught on and was like “What is going on with these ducks?!”. Some people were taking bets on who it was, collecting them thinking it was a prize, or checking security camera footage. As this was all unfolding throughout the day, me and my teammates, Ben and Nate, knew we had to make some sort of content out of this and I felt it was the perfect scenario to make a mockumentary like “The Office”. Everyone loved the idea and we filmed and edited it in about two hours.  RK: Are you surprised at how much it has taken off? GK: Absolutely! We started making episodes in January and would get excited when we would get 50 likes on Facebook for them—so you could imagine getting millions of views and thousands of followers has been so exciting for us. We are truly so happy people are enjoying them.
RK: Give me some BTS! Who writes the scripts or storyboards for it? GK: Me and my teammate Ben Bushen make the episodes. 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. Then we just go for it! We usually start with my interview and I’ll sit and blabber on for about 15 minutes and we take the best parts from that and then know how we’ll move forward. We’ll go downstairs and just say “hey do you guys wanna be in this?” and luckily most of our coworkers are very willing to participate which makes our job a lot easier. As far as a script, everything is just improv! We have found that the more we plan, the less genuine or funny it feels—so we just keep the cameras rolling and hope for the best. I help direct everyone, but they’re all so naturally hilarious they don’t even need it! Everything is filmed and edited in one day and we have started doing episodes weekly every Tuesday now. RK: I love that. And who exactly films and edits it? It’s so good. GK: As far as the camerawork and editing, with Ben being a huge fan of “The Office”, he just really understood the assignment and was able to recreate that feel from the show so well! While we can do great in front of the camera, it's Ben in editing that really makes it happen. RK: Everyone who is in it actually works at Mohawk Chevrolet, right? GK: Yes! All Mohawk Chevrolet employees I promise! RK: Have you had anyone come into the dealership who heard about you through TikTok? If so, what was that like? GK: Yes, we have had some people come in who have seen the videos and let us know how much they love them! It’s been nice to see that even with having a video blow up to this scale we still are reaching local people who are so excited to see something from their area take off like this! RK: I saw Chevrolet corporate commented on a video. Have you been in touch with them? GK: Just the comment! We were so excited about that one.
RK: What's next for “The Dealership”? GK: We are going to continue releasing new episodes every Tuesday as long as people want them! RK: Finally, I've noticed that car dealerships in general are very good at TikTok. Is there something about the work environment of a dealership that lends itself to fun TikToks? GK: Tough one. They all just happen to have lots of big personalities, maybe? (LOL)
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