Now that former Susan Docherty has been elevated to the nationalized automaker’s top marketing slot, the ever-churlish independent press (guilty as charged) has focused on the fact that the former Buick-Pontiac-GMC marketing chief is a GM lifer—in a company with a sworn dedication to change its cancerous culture. Only hours after hinting that he’d consider a non-GM exec for marketing jefe, fellow GM lifer and current CEO Fritz Henderson gave Docherty the nod and said this about that: “Whoever replaced LaNeve needed to come from inside GM because the dealership network and sales role is complicated and would be difficult for an outsider to learn.” Hubris meets the Peter Principle on the taxpayer’s dime. Nice. So . . . what’s this, then, from the GM press release announcing Docherty’s ascension? “GM will look outside to fill the Buick-GMC general manager position. ‘This will infuse new ideas and an outside perspective into our marketing efforts,’ Henderson said.” So what’s good enough for Buick-GMC isn’t good enough for the corporate mothership? Never mind singing from the same page; GM’s management is so out of tune it makes caterwauling cats seem like the The Philippine Madrigal Singers, only nowhere near as exotic.
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I swear to God, everyone at GM has ADD.
Practical advize for you, Fritz. You need someone that understands Buick? Well head on down to the local Social Security office. Find some grandpa that looks like he’s still got a little bounce in his step, and hire him.
Who else besides an octogenerian will understand what Buick is all about?
They should hire this guy
http://www.generalwatch.com/buickman.cfm
I hear he’s good at selling Buicks.
Buick is about understated elegance. They have long been the best looking GM cars. Too bad their steering is numb and their handling appalling. If those two things were improved, it would change the image of the brand. GM shouldn’t look for marketing gimmicks, they should improve the product.
What is the chance of that happening with the current management?
Despite all the abuse, having an insider that knows the corp ropes combined with an outsider that can bring fresh perspective is a good combination. If you have the right people and they are listened to. Two big ifs.
highrpm makes a good point. Buick has been, and still is, neglecting their most important demographic: the people most likely to consider buying a Buick.
I think Buickman knows what I mean.
Now that Tiger Woods is no longer doing Buick ads, I suggest they consider using spokespersons well known and trusted by folks eligible for AARP. There’s a hell of a lot of ’em, and they actually have money, in contrast to the 18-25 demographic.
To fund this new marketing initiative, Buick can fire all the stylists who think squashed roofs and gunslit windows on a four door sedan are super cool. Hmm … wonder if they still have the body dies for the Park Avenue?
Juniper, an insider lives in the GM world. That IS the problem. For about 35 years or so. They need an outsider, a Mulally of sorts. The inbred management of GM has killed their ability to think.
I think that an outsider is crucial at Buick, much moreso than for corporate sales. What about Jim Press? He had a good run at Toyota and should have a lot of good habits. I think that he was doomed at Chrysler under Cerberus, and I don’t think his failure there was for anything under his control. Maybe he could do something here, if he has the stomach for another attempt at a turnaround.
I believe if we all pause and reflect for a moment, many of us will admit that we do look outside when making difficult decisions. Speaking personally, I will choose to observe the peace and tranquility outside my window, while I ponder different options. Perhaps, we are taking the PR spin too literally. It’s entirely possible, that GM’s leadership also choose to look out their window(s) while making these decisions.
Of course, I could be wrong.
seabrjim
For the top job I totally agree, but that wasn’t the subject of the article. As easy as it sounds you can’t put a new top in charge of a big empty building.
The Buick customer age thing is interesting. For Lucernes the stereotype may be true, but Enclave (the best selling Buick) drivers around here look just like RX and X5 drivers. 30 and 40 somethings with lots of money and constant cell phone usage.
And by “outsider” they mean the wino loitering on the curb outside RenCenter…
In terms of changing a culture, can you think of a historic revolutionary that came from outside of a culture they changed? Hasn’t every one of us that’s been inside of a large company/organization/culture had the thought “it’d be different if I ran things around here”?
Even at the very least, an outsider change agent like Elmer Johnson has to spend enough time inside so they are fluent enough with the culture to be able to discern between what needs to be discarded or changed and what’s good and needs to be nurtured. For example, Prof. Rob Kleinbaum, who worked for GM as an employee and consultant for over 2 decades points to GM’s successful subcultures in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.
The paradox is while change agents like Alan Mullaly can be needed to break out of the box that lifers have lived in, the lifers may actually have a better idea of where the problems are.
Interesting vid. Truly, the Bill Mitchell Riverias were beautiful from every angle.
However, I never understood the appeal of coupes. Forcing the ladies in the back seat to assume awkward positions and contortions just to enter and exit. Not everybody is an acrobat!
Justg rebadge any decent current Buicks as Cadillacs and SHUT DOWN THE STUPID BRAND.
It was a monumental mistake to close down pontiac, but leave Buick alive, when its buyers are either dead or in nursing homes, and do not need a stupid Buick anyway.
hwyhobo :
October 8th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Buick is about understated elegance.
More like way overpriced CRAP, that handles like a BARGE. And its alleged reliability is a Fairy tale, an old friend bought a top of the line Park Ave and it has a ton of problems, many unacceptable even in a lowly CHEVY or KIA!
I caught that comment about bringing in an external person in the press release too. I suspect that it was meant to pacify the critics who say GM is too insular. Now they can point to this and say, “Hey, we are bringing in great new talent, just look at our new Buick-GMC general manager!!!”
The fact is that bright external people have been spit out with some regularity at GM. It’s a moribund culture with a f*cked-up corporate mentality that rewards inaction and political acumen over real business results.
The only good thing—from an executive standpoint—is the new Chairman. At least Whitacre is keeping the pressure on Fritz and the gang. Or so that’s the buzz.
Who else besides an octogenerian will understand what Buick is all about?
Those silly-looking wannabe ’90s hipsters washing the Buick by the pool, of course!
Seriously, just build a car that I want to buy. I don’t care about nameplates, especially since the badge-engineering has destroyed any difference between the GM brands over my entire (30-year) lifetime. So, just realize that “Buick” means “expensive Chevy” — and the only way they’re going to be able to change that is to build better-than-the-Germans-Japanese-and-Korean cars with Buick nameplates for the next decade or so. Marketing can’t make up for ho-hum badge-engineered products.
It does look like they’ve made a step with the right direction with some of their more recent models — but they’ve got to be coming out with great models every 2 years or so for the next decade.
@ Ronnie Schreiber +1 and thanks.
“The paradox is while change agents like Alan Mullaly can be needed to break out of the box that lifers have lived in, the lifers may actually have a better idea of where the problems are.”
I’ve left enough clues since April for those who have been following along – I am a GM lifer.
GM salary employees old enough to take the window retirement package are gone; but there are still plenty of lifers left that didn’t have the age to be offered a package. And they are being candid with where the problems are in the new forums provided. As well as providing solutions.
As I said previously in another post, I believe GM will be around a minimum of 18 months from now and profitable at that. Lots of us here are working towards that end.
Me! Me! Me!
Are those the dulcet tones of the great Bud Lindemann I hear?
“sunny slopes of exotic Flint, Michigan”
LMAO
reminds me of the Chevy Bowtie of Chevy in the Hole sitting on top of the hill on the horizon as I walked on – OMG – Chevrolet Ave!!!
oh yeah, and my older brother’s ’70 ish Buick Riviera
None of this makes any difference. I am the person Buick is going after, and the last one I wanted was a ’69 Riviera. Well, wait a minute. I got laid in my dad’s ’71 Electra, so I liked that one, and there’s a ’60 Electra on eBay that sort of interests me. AND THAT IS IT.
So LaNeve gets canned, presumably because GM sales have tanked without respite, and his successor is the person who engineered the stunning sales revival of — Buick and GMC? And the brand they just killed, Pontiac?
LaNeve is the fall guy – deserved or not deserved, he’s still the fall guy. The proof is in the replacement – a woman of no particular credential, pliable and compliant, but a woman, nonetheless.
Ms. Pellosi – who recently promised to gin up the federal treasury for more GM dollars when inevitably needed – undoubtedly approves.
Government Motors can do no less than please its masters.
After all, why worry about selling cars when you can instead simply sell a few Democrats?
Wonder what Fritz will do when the government decides it wants the company run by a lesbian Hispanic female illegal immigrant living with Barney Frank?
@ Packard
Wow, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and with bonus points for immigrant and democrat bashing in the same post…you win the ‘King Douche’ award of the day.
Hey dinosaur, it was (mostly) a bunch of straight, white, anti-progress/ anti-government regulation, blowhard men such as yourself who ran the company into the ground in the first place…please crawl back under your rock, and/or get in your “Packard time machine” and go back to a time when crap like your post would go unchallenged.
Those days are over.