REPORT: The Blake Project offers $100k worth of free brand consultancy to GM
General Motors is probably swimming in ideas and getting another thousand offers every day on how to turn the company around – there are fifteen pages of responses on the Tell Fritz site alone, and those are just the questions the GM CEO has answered. Add the company's recent advertising issues to that, and the internal suggestion box is most likely brimming as well.
Enter The Blake Project, a brand consultancy firm that is offering GM $100,000 worth of time for free. That won't include economy travel expenses, but will include a day with the firm's three-man team of Jack Trout, Brad VanAudken, and Mark Ritson, to "share insights, ideas and expertise."
What might those insights and ideas be? Some of them were looked at in a piece called "New Brand Strategies for GM." The first task given is to define the brands, e.g., Chevrolet should stand for something like "Good value, variety and heritage," instead of "big, small, expensive, cheap, truck, van or sports car." Buick should "stop making cheap Buicks," and Cadillac "can never be a prestige car. The fancy imports dominate that category." Is that glimpse worth setting aside a day of GM's time? If anyone at the General thinks so, click the link below...
[Source: Branding Strategy Insider]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
bvz 3:03PM (7/28/2009)
Generally this sounds like it is a gimmick, designed to drum up business for the consultancy. That said, the first two suggestions make sense - but don't seem like anything other than common sense. I'm not sure about the last suggestion. Caddy's are starting to move upmarket in a very real way (albeit slowly). With enough time and work, the Cadillac brand will actually stand for more than it's current, mixed value.
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Commander Cool 3:52PM (7/28/2009)
You sir, are correct. Guess what, they just got a bunch of free advertising for stating what is obvious to mose people. And just to stir the waters they throw in a dis on one of the established brands to get people talking. Bravo, well done.
Cadillac should be upmarket. Just giving the imports the market doesn't make much sense to me.
bvz 5:08PM (7/28/2009)
Yup. And you have to hand it to them... it worked. Got me talking (though it doesn't seem to be too hard to do that :)
jv2k 2:39PM (7/28/2009)
Wow... that's advice you can get from reading autoblog. Free or not GM should turn these idiots down.
Also Cadillac can rise up the ranks again and it has been doing it for the past couple years.
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Shiftright 2:43PM (7/28/2009)
I agree...
sunz 3:04PM (7/28/2009)
"Also Cadillac can rise up the ranks again and it has been doing it for the past couple years.
I agree.
-sun
Tool 3:05PM (7/28/2009)
The "free" $100,000 day's worth of consulting would result in these three guys just giving them the same speech as the article. GM -- or anyone else -- could just read it in 2 minutes and save everyone a lot of time and energy.
GM needs to revamp their marketing. But what I read in the article in nothing new. Same old thing Jack Trout et al have been harping at for years.
epilonious 3:18PM (7/28/2009)
Here's the thinking behind saying "Cadillac can never be a prestige brand"
GM should stop advertising Cadillac as a prestige brand. namely because "we're such a nice prestige brand" is a strange, muddled concept that gets you things like Kate Walsh launching automotive platitudes whilst driving a CTS inside a lava lamp...
GM should advertize Cadillac as the place where you can get the most-awesome/fanciest technology for all applications: "We have the comfiest largemobile" "we have the meanest sports saloon" "we have the swankiest swankmobile and it has more LEDs than a 32" Apple monitor". Sure, all the autoblog commenters know that Cadillac has finally emerged with some kickass stuff, but the rest of the world suspects them as the tippy top end of the notorious brand-engineered (and expensive... and unreliable...) mess that GM used to be.
To Wit: It'd probably be easy to convince a non-car-nerd that the CTS-V is based on the Malibu than it would be to convince them the CTS-V could beat an M5.
Cadillac needs to be advertized and focused on getting first crack at everything on the cool wall. People who want to pay extra for the near-ESP suspension and the harmonious mixes of direct injection and forced induction need to know they should at least give Caddies a try too.
Chase 3:40PM (7/28/2009)
Epilonious, you put it perfectly!
jv2k 4:03PM (7/28/2009)
epilonious:
The Kate Walsh advertisements aren't a result of pushing the prestige. The commercial isn't saying "it's a cadillac of course it's good".
I get what you mean; cadillac should make advertisements that focus on letting the customers know how they changed, but surprisingly enough they are picking up in sales and doing fairly well for themselves.
Also wouldn't telling us how sporty, how comfortable, how luxurious, and how gadget filled their car is be pushing their prestige?
inline6 4:06PM (7/28/2009)
Can you imagine if BMW or Audi took advice like this in the '70s? Or if Lexus had in the late '80s?
There is some truth to the point that Cadillac doesn't have at present a full-line of prestigious vehicles. The STS is too invisible, the DTS is too old and doesn't have the dynamics, and the XLR is going away after this year.
The thing is that they have three excellent products (CTS, SRX, Escalade) that are prestigious. The observation that most people today will more likely believe that the CTS-V is based on the Malibu than it is an M5-beater is probably, sadly, correct.
However, if Audi and Lexus can base their cars on lesser car platforms and still be pretigious, then so can Cadillac. It just takes great products, time, and strong marketing.
Never say never.
PJ 4:08PM (7/28/2009)
Part of the "never being a prestige brand" also comes down to the customer-facing element. You can build the best 3-Series-fighter in the world, and it still won't be perceived as a "prestige" car as long as its buyers do their shopping in a plaster-walled showroom full of balloons, G3s, and Yukons, drinking cold coffee out of a styrofoam cup.
Josh 5:19PM (7/28/2009)
Haha, 'can never be a prestige brand'? C'mon, I think a lot of people underestimate the power of capitalism.
Believe it or not, there was a time when plenty of other so-called Auto Journalists told Toyota that their re-badged leather-equipped Camry and unknown full-size RWD 'flagship' car would never achieve the prestige of a MB/BMW/Audi/etc. Yeah, right.
On 2nd thought, I think people just underestimate the sheer fickleness of today's consumers.
Chet 1:01AM (7/29/2009)
Cadillac can be a prestige brand just as soon as Cadillac dealers are forbidden from putting fake convertible tops on cars and parking them in their showrooms.
Alex 2:40PM (7/28/2009)
The fact that they claim the Cadillac cannot be a prestige manufacturer is going to kill their shot with GM, IMHO. In fact Cadillac is *the* American prestige manufacturer that has offerings that run head to head with the best the Europeans and Japanese can offer.
Their post is not very convincing. Sounds more like they are hashing out ideas out loud than actually putting forward a game plan.
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Shiftright 2:42PM (7/28/2009)
I agree on Chevy and Buick, but why the hell can't Cadillac be a prestige brand? I would argue that it already is. It's finally competing and often beating the competition on performance and yes, quality. It took a gargantuan concerted effort and dogged determination from GM to shed the image of ersatz baroque ill handling barges for the white leather shoe car salesman set, and they're supposed to give up now? Stupid advice....The only thing Cadillac needs to truly arrive is a dealership experience in line with its competitors. Most of them are god-awful and you find yourself eyeing a $50k car sitting next to an Aveo or Silverado.
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BoxerFanatic 3:00PM (7/28/2009)
It depends on whether you think a prestige brand is something like Lexus and Mercedes Benz, or whether you think a prestige brand is something like Bentley or Rolls.
Caddy can be a very good competitor to Lexus, M-B, BMW, Audi... So could Lincoln, if Ford is very careful and diligent about it.
I might agree with them, though, that they don't have the reputation, or the capital to go after Bentley, Aston, Rolls, Maybach, Ferrari, and the like, that are brands that are mostly above the 100K line.
Most would agree that "prestige" more applies to the more expensive group, even if the lower-priced group is still very much a luxury oriented group of nameplates.
I am not sure GM needs to be that. I think GM needs to get their house in order, directly, before they worry about where they would like to go next.
Mike 3:21PM (7/28/2009)
Boxer,
You have a point, but even at their most arrogant, I doubt GM thought Cadillac competed with the likes of Bentley, Rolls, or Maybach (the others you listed are supercars, not premium luxury cars).
So either this brand group is so far out in left field that they are stating what is already blatantly obvious, or even worse, they are trying to say Cadillac won't ever compete against MB, BMW, or Lexus. Either way, that statement lost them any credibility.
xtasi 2:45PM (7/28/2009)
I think that GM needs to get off the "full line up" mentality from their brands. Each brand does NOT have to cater to each and every segment. Small cars will be needed (CAFE looming and fuel prices rising). They could offer premiun small cars under Chevy or Cadillac (premimun in content, not just an Aveo with leather).
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ufgrat 4:27PM (7/28/2009)
GM has already redefined their brands...
For better information, go read the webchat with their VP of Design, Ed Welburn:
http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2009/07/webchat_global_design_with_ed_welburn.html