At $138,888 per point it's a bargain!

I've been doing some math and the findings are a little shocking:

The most recent statistics show that right under 59,500,000 vehicles are sold each year.

There are 198,988,000 licensed drivers in the U.S. which means that on average, 29.9% of all drivers buy a car each year

But, only 17 million of the 59.5MM cars sold are new cars – 28.6% of total car buyers

Since most automotive advertisers view the advertising they place each month as directed toward that month's sales, of the 29.9% of folks who will buy a car this year, 2.49% of them will buy this month.

But only 28.6% of that 2.49% will buy a new car. That's just 0.71% of the population

The fact that there are 45 different car makes isn’t important, since every manufacturer is trying to conquest an entire vehicle segment

There are 20 vehicle segments as measured by R.L. Polk. Let’s be generous and say that consumers would consider every single model within five different segments (compact SUV, compact Premium SUV, mid-size SUV, mid-size Premium SUV and Minivan, for instance) – meaning the in-market intenders that would remotely consider your product this month amounts to 0.18% of the U.S. population!

Yowza. But what does that mean for automotive marketing and advertising? Here's what we've been doing for the last 50 years.

Let's say we're buying 200 points of TV this week at a 50 reach and four frequency. The best you can hope for is that every single person within that .18% that will consider your product will see your ads. Let's say they do. Now let's say you're paying $500 a point to make it easy math. At 200 points it's a $100,000 schedule. But remember that of the 50% of the population you reached, 49.82% was a waste. In reaching that .18% four times each, you've got 0.72 worth of TRPs. That's $138,888 per point!!! And clients complain about a buck a mailer :)

The question this begs is whether or not a plan based around GRPs/TRPs is even relevant anymore. Your thoughts?