GM extensively retools marketing and retail efforts
Somewhat lost in the turmoil of GM's efforts to cut costs and trim excess manufacturing capacity have been the
company's plans to make its marketing and retail distribution more efficient. Brent Dewars, VP of Sales for GM's North
American operations told Reuters Thursday that the company will move away from ineffective national marketing campaigns
to campaigns specifically targeted at key markets like California, Florida and the Baltimore-Washington area.
Rather than marketing the company as a whole, GM will move towards pushing its eight brands individually. Meanwhile,
the company's plan to reduce spending on sales incentives seems to be on track.
Perhaps the most interesting
move will be to consolidate multiple brands in single dealerships - sort of a superstore concept. Dewar said GM plans to
increas the number of dealers that sell Pontiac, Buick and GMC brands in the same showrooms, which should allow the
company to eliminate overlapping models and badge-engineered clones. In a similar vein, GM will group Cadillac, Hummer
and Saab brands in urban areas, with three showrooms sharing a common service facility - saving the cost of duplicate
facilities on expensive urban real estate.
Ticking clocks would seem to be GM's primary enemy now, rather
than Japanese and European competitors. It will take a lot of time to roll out market-targeted new vehicles,
restructure dealerships and redirect and pare down the company's massive bureaucracy. We'll just have to wait and see
if the company can buy that much time.
[Source: Reuters]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DetroitWonk 9:30AM (3/10/2006)
So let me get this straight...they are going to market themselves as 8 individual brands again (because that was what they were doing before the idea of badging and branding their vehicles as "GM" vehicles.
And then GM is going to move their retail sales channels to a system that consolidates brands? How will these two decisions NOT confuse the buyer?
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Puff Chippy 9:34AM (3/10/2006)
Sounds like it's time to invest in some GM stock to me. This is a step in the right direction and should help GM get the word out about it's excellent vehicles.
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Puff Chippy 9:38AM (3/10/2006)
Sounds like it's time to invest in some GM stock to me. This is a step in the right direction and should help GM get the word out about it's excellent vehicles.
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Michael Karesh 9:42AM (3/10/2006)
The B-P-GMC consolidation is the best idea they've had in some time. Because it will greatly reduce pressure from dealers to give every brand a middle-of-the-road product in every segment, it will give GM room to truly differentiate the brands.
But will they actually do this? Or simply clone Chevrolets?
The Cadillac-Hummer-Saab plan is less necessary, as these brands are already differentiated based on unique products. As the article says, it will mostly permit cost savings for dealers.
The regional plans are one of those things that have been talked about forever but rarely implemented fully or well. These companies like to run everything from the HQ, and you can't effectively manage many regional plans this way.
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Optimus Prime 9:49AM (3/10/2006)
8 brands x 3 regions (at least) = 24 ad campaigns?
noproblemo
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Richard Warren 10:20AM (3/10/2006)
#1 For the same reason people are not confused now. GM has always had multiple points and many if not in the same showroom are on the same lot diffirent dispaly area, same dealer. Reading the article it says allow MORE dealers to do it.
The only ones who are confused are the ones who want to be confused.
Go to the Supermarket, there, row after row are the same products with the only difference pretty much being the label. Guess what? They all sell at their own level.
#2, not a bad idea, in fact I bought GM at it's low and this week picked up nearly a dollar a share, then sold, my gut tells me it will fall back and I'll buy some more and hold.
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Brandon 10:49AM (3/10/2006)
Wait just a minute here. Six months ago they promised me that putting a "GM" badge on all their cars was the solution to all their marketing problems.
Make up your mind, General.
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donald douglas 11:05AM (3/10/2006)
should allow the company to eliminate overlapping models and badge-engineered clones.
=========================================
oops wait over half the products at the new "gmc-pontiac-buick" dealers are badge engineered chevys !!!
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Jay Condrick 11:40AM (3/10/2006)
Lumping SAAB in with Caddy and Hummer makes no sense to me. SAAB and Saturn together, maybe.
The problem isn't with regional vs. national campaigns...advertising can suck locally just as well as nationally.
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Rick M 12:56PM (3/10/2006)
Sweet. Sounds like they are doing the right thing and following in Ford's footsteps: Frequent, random shifts in strategy, structure, and direction. Consistency is for bitches!
BTW, weren't we told (by GM) that their single-theme national umbrella campaigns (Keep America Rolling) were far more effective and efficient than 24 separate regional/brand campaigns? Yes, we were.
Lastly, is anyone else confused by the idea that Cadillac now has TWO ad agencies? One for the CTS, SRX, & V-series, and one for their other cars & trucks. Now that is so weird it must be brilliant!!
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the chad 12:14AM (3/12/2006)
Good, this is so much better than the stupid "GM Identity" program. GM has too bad a reputation for that ever to work. If they actually _FOCUS_ their brands at specific targets it will greatly help. Aside from being a little ADD, its in the right direction, at least.
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