In an attempt to destroy the kudos and high mark values around some of their leading brands, GM have announced that they will be badging ‘GM’ on the side of the doors of Saabs, Chevrolets and Cadillacs.
This may be oh-so-surprising, but most of GM’s marketing and advertising budget in North America is spent
on promoting its eight brands and therefore people don’t associate the brands with
with GM!
"The name General Motors speaks to people," Mark LaNeve, who took
over as head of GM’s North America vehicle sales and marketing last
month, said. "Research tells us that many of our most outstanding
segment-leading vehicles are not associated by the customer to be part
of the GM portfolio."
Speaks to people about what exactly? Cadillac has worked very hard to be the position they are in today – and GM has done what exactly??
GM named LaNeve to his new position about two weeks before the
automaker announced last month that it would post its biggest quarterly
loss since 1992. LaNeve first decision about GM branding looks like he’s sailing them further down the Swanee.
CNN News
Jalopnik Comment
Related PSFK Articles
GM Death Watch
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Why GMs Plan Won;t Work
If General Motors Corp. were any other company, its problems would have sorted themselves out a long time ago. Logic says that when your cash holdings exceed your entire valuation in the stock market, some Wall Street shark is going to swoop in, snap up the good parts, and toss the rest.
Companies with bloated factories and workforces got religion the hard way 20 years ago, in the days of “Neutron Jack” Welch. And with today’s more active boards, CEOs who consistently lose ground to the competition usually don’t need Donald Trump to tell them they’re fired.
But GM, of course, is no ordinary company. With sales of $193 billion, it stands as an icon of fading American industrial might. Size and symbolism dictate that its fate has sweeping implications. So what’s bad for General Motors is still, undeniably, bad for America. (YAHOO!)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20050429/bs_bw/b3932001mz001
via Agenda Inc
April 30th, 2005 at 1:09 pm
GM Could At Least Start With Its Advertising
General Motors is going to make some changes in its advertising. Not that advertising is the biggest source of blame for the automaker’s woes. But it’s a category of problems that can be fixed the fastest.
Pontiac: This is a brand that has some potential to be a “blue-collar” success brand like DaimlerChrysler’s Dodge brand is becoming. The product is starting to show promise. The G6 is a pretty interesting car, and the Solstice roadster looks like a screamer. The GTO doesn’t look like much, but it drives like the GTO to which it pays homage. The ads have long been dreadful, lurching from one idiotic, vague positioning to another for years. Chemistri, a Publicis Groupe agency, handles it. The agency, which also handles Cadillac advertising, should lose it immediately and probably will.
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/brandnewday/archives/2005/04/gm_can_at_least.html?campaign_id=rss_blog_brandnewday
May 4th, 2005 at 8:55 am
Toyota to share hybrid tech with GM?
http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2005/05/09/sharing_economy.html
May 9th, 2005 at 9:31 pm