I normally hate GM's ad's but I think their latest tv one is a good one. It ties the past (which many of us can remember) into the future (hoping there is one).

http://www.gm.com/

Check out the "Then & Now" ad.

 

I don't know. Its not a bad ad, but maybe instead of living off of their past they ought to produce cars worth buying.

 

It's a neat ad. Nostalgia is big right now. I still hold out hope for GM. My family was pretty much a Chevy family and I always got a kick out of seeing the new models when they hit the streets in the fall.

 

I am afraid that I have to agree with Lainey and Rob. I also was raised in a GM family for the most part. Oldsmobile, Buicks, Pontiacs and Chevy's.

My first car was a Buick hand me down, I also had a Firebird and then a Chevy Van to haul my race bikes.

In my opinion one of the keys to GM's future success (assuming that they can get out from under the weight of poor business decisions forced on them largely by the UAW, i.e., the job bank program) is capturing the hearts and minds of younger buyers. I am not sure that the "Then" part of the ad does much to do that. In stead, I think that they need to bank on the fact that most Americans have short memories, and are suckers for good deals (not always the best value). I believe that they would be better served by trying to capture the hearts and minds of the immigrant population buying into the "Heart beat of America" theme. Buying a piece of the American culture. With all of that "Madison Avenue" stuff stated. The big issue as Rob mentioned is building something worth buying.

The Cadillac mark is a perfect example. About a score ago (how many twenty somethings know what that term means) Cadillac knew it had a real problem when their market research showed that the average age of a Cadillac buyer was sixty-three years old. Since then, they have rocketed into second place in market share in their category by "breaking through" to a younger market with their "edgy" styling (which does nothing for me) and changing their image, along with building performance and handling into their platform.

The Corvette C-6 is another good example of what can be accomplished when GM management commits to building a world class platform.

As I have posted previously in another thread. I think that the irony in this is that the foreign marks that are being built here in the U.S. by American workers is a good example that the "American worker" is not the problem. It is a combination of mis-management on the part of the Big Three, resting on their laurels, and unrealistic programs (and demands) forced by the unions when the grass was greener.

 

The hidden message, if you want to call it that, is that they DO plan to be around in the future.

With the front page of almost every paper burying them before they died, they have to first convince people they are not dead and will be around. And I for one hope they are.

If we loss GM and then Ford as some have suggested, that loss of that industrial base can not be overstated on what it's total impact will be on the US economy.

There's little doubt that the only way they can do that is build better products and not just shove out BS, but even if they do, they have to do something more which would get someone like Rob (or even me) to consider testing it. Personally at this point they have to have huge WOW factors to bring back most of us IMHO. Can a ship that big and tossing in the water be fired up? I don't claim to know the answer to that but I'm pulling for them.

 

[QUOTE=dlq04,Mar 29 2006, 11:36 PM] The hidden message, if you want to call it that, is that they DO plan to be around in the future.

 

Dave Moore, McCann's Chief Creative Officer (who created the ad) had this to say about it: "The history of it is, Mark (LaNeve, GM's marketing VP) asked us to do something that would 'get people rooting for GM again.' Personally, I wanted to do something that told the world that GM wasn't going away...that it always has, and always will be, a major, integral, relevant part of American life."