A century ago, Les Kelley published the first Kelley Blue Book based on a list of used cars he wanted to buy for his automotive dealerships, featuring the prices he was willing to pay.
Since 1926, Kelley Blue Book (KBB) has grown into one of the automotive industry’s best-known resources for vehicle valuations, pricing information and reviews.
Now, the Irvine-based company, part of Atlanta-based Cox Automotive, which also owns online car marketplace Autotrader, is looking beyond automobiles while adapting its 100-year-old brand to a new generation of consumers increasingly turning to artificial intelligence for information.
Among its newest initiatives is Kelley Blue Book Homes, a home valuation service being tested in select markets. The project marks an effort to extend KBB’s expertise in vehicle pricing into residential real estate.
“As a company rooted in providing trusted data and insights, we regularly evaluate opportunities that could extend our expertise into adjacent categories,” a company spokesperson told the Business Journal. “At this time, Kelley Blue Book Homes remains in a limited test phase. Our focus continues to be delivering industry-leading automotive insights and solutions for consumers, dealers and our partners.”
Adapting to AI Searches
The initiative comes as AI-powered searches are changing how consumers research and shop for vehicles, presenting another challenge for a company that successfully made the transition from print to the internet three decades ago.
KBB previously navigated competition from online automotive marketplaces such as Cars.com and CarGurus. More recently, platforms such as Carvana and CarMax have reshaped how vehicles are bought and sold.
As more consumers turn to AI-powered chatbots to research vehicles and compare prices, KBB, which attracts more than 25 million monthly website visitors, is investing in marketing, online valuation tools and video content to maintain its brand recognition and reach new audiences.
“We’re doing all the things that make sure we show up in those searches,” Vice President of Operations Steve Lind told the Business Journal. “We’re making sure we’re visible and picked up in those situations, and it doesn’t hurt that we’ve got a decent little marketing budget that supports the traffic that we do.”
Digitizing the book 30 years ago allowed KBB to reach everyday car shoppers directly. Previously, the publication was distributed primarily to dealers, manufacturers and banks.
KBB.com launched in 1995 and the company continued publishing the physical book for several more years before going completely online. Though the print publication no longer exists, its foundation in automotive data helped KBB establish its presence in the digital age.
“We’re hyper focused on building and maintaining the brand, and the way we’re going to do that is to win in the LLM and AI world with our content, with the brand, with our videos, and what we provide to consumers,” Lind said. “They need the trusted resource that says, ‘Kelley Blue Book says…’”
Putting Faces to the Brand
John Sackrison, executive director of the Orange County Automobile Dealers Association (OCADA), said Kelley Blue Book is still going “strong and recognized by consumers as a trusted resource,” with dealers also taking advantage of its real-time data, especially for trade-ins on new vehicles.
“If it’s something the consumers are using, it’s something dealerships use too,” Sackrison said.
President of Wilson Automotive Group, Craig Whetter, said that Kelly Blue Book provides an avenue for its available vehicles to be shown online. All inventory from Wilson Automotive’s 15 U.S. dealerships are listed for sale at KBB.com. “They’re part of our culture,” Whetter added.
Lind noted how KBB has also adjusted to younger generations that are starting “to shop and think and act and rely on different types of information” in specific digital formats.
“We need to make sure we’re delivering the content and experiences that they really prefer — video, consumer-generated reviews and things like that,” Lind said.
The company has restructured its editorial team and approach to content, mirroring how social media platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and Instagram deliver information by “putting faces to the brand.”
The content has also evolved to serve car owners as well as shoppers.
Editorial Manager Sean Tucker highlighted Editor Jordan Schiefer and Senior Editor Michael Jordan as up-and-coming “brand faces” who have posted reviews of new vehicles from automakers, including Irvine-based Rivian Automotive and Kia America, to reach younger audiences.
“With video content, that’s an audience that’s more engaged regularly with the same presenters,” Tucker said. “If you look in the comments on (Schiefer’s) videos, people are waiting to hear what Jordan has to say about the next Rivian. The comments are, ‘Oh, I couldn’t wait to see Jordan’s video,’ which means this is not somebody who’s buying every electric car that comes out. It’s somebody who’s logging in to see what Jordan has to say.”
Tucker acknowledged the learning curve of using AI tools to analyze KBB’s data but emphasized that each post and video remains “entirely human produced.”
“A lot of what we’re trying to do is establish authority not just with the Kelley Blue Book brand,” he said, “but with the individual people behind it.”