Automotive News is reporting that Joel Ewanick has left General Motors. Ewanick was hired away from Nissan (who had just hired him away from Hyundai) to bring fresh thinking to GM’s marketing and advertising efforts.
Ewanick led a major consolidation of agency work at GM and stated that he wanted to make Chevrolet more like Apple (perhaps not his most original thought). He was credited for Hyundai’s job loss protection program, and Chevrolet’s latest fixed price and return guarantee programs have his fingerprints all over them (though GM has tried both in the past). At the Cadillac ATS drive a few weeks ago the marketing people claimed that he was a major force behind their work (which anyone watching the Olympics has now seen many, many times).
So, why is he gone? AN’s Mike Colias blames GM CEO Akerson, who has replaced (or driven away) many high-level executives during his two years at the top.
This is quite damning of Akerson. Although reading the AN article it looks like Ewanick made his share of mis-steps (the Chevy tagline, how news about not advertising in the superbowl came out). Has he improved Chevy/GM advertising?
Wouldn’t it be more damning of Whitacre since this guy was hired under the Whitacre era?
I have to wonder this myself, because I have acquaintances who know Whitacre, and seem to think he was one heck of a boss.
When I saw the new “soft” look of the Caddy, I thought of this guy. A couple of years ago I heard him say that he wanted to keep Cadillac and Buick in separate “swim lanes” as it relates to styling. The rounded look would be Buick’s, and the sharp-edged look would be Cadillac’s. Obviously his opinion didn’t hold.
I doubt he had much of a say with regard to design.
That brings up a point: shouldn’t the people trying to advertise and sell the product have more input? Building cars marketing can sell makes more sense than telling marketing to sell what gets built. Selling a bunch of generic look-alikes to different customers at different price points isn’t a winning strategy. Differentiation sells, GM proved it under Sloan. Now they seem to be copying Studebaker.
Is your background in marketing at the auto makers? Mine is in Finance as a valuation consultant, I do not have an auto background. I always thought marketing was just another term for sales until I took some MBA marketing classes. From what I remember, in many industries it is just a term for the sales staff, but in others it is a term that incorporates a total approach to identifying the customer, his desires and then selling the product to him. Target markets, focus groups, sales engineering, and so forth. I was under the impression from listening to Mr. Ewanick that he was supposed to be doing just that. But maybe GM just wanted a salesman.
Marketing people generally try to manage all four P’s, one of which is product. The rest of the organization generally tries to limit them to the other three.
Even when GM was supposedly practicing brand management, Ron Zarrella complained about his limited say over product. He was blamed for a number of product missteps anyway.
This might have been a source of frustration to Ewanick, but I doubt he had any more say over product in his earlier positions.
I once was given a definition of marketing that goes like this;
“Marketing is finding out what your customer wants and then providing it”
Quite pithy. Basically, if you don’t get THAT bit right then all the sales/promotion/advertising etc. in the world is going to be like swimming uphill.
So, really, the Marketing Dept. really should be involved in the design process -right at the beginning!
Simplest definition of functional marketing vs. functional selling ever given to me was that marketing should encompass (therefore have say in design, etc) everything required to get customer in the door, where as selling should encompass everything required to get customer to leave with the product. Yes there’s limitations and times where the two groups should be cross-functional, but lumping the two together is how you end up with dis-functional. J.E. probably thought he was getting ready to take part in and be given power in the radical remaking of an automaker (same thing that attracted talent to Ford from places you wouldn’t have expected them to leave) and realized he was just going to be part of the same old, which does not leave a warm fuzzy feeling inside regarding Akerson as a CEO.
Marketing: to con people to buy something that they have no need for, or didn’t initially want, or whose competitor product may be a better choice.
Marketing: Taking credit for the idea, and for the work of the designers and engineers who created it. (Like fake vomit.)
Marketing: Tell the boss “You’ll get 5000 more sales if it has _________ (insert latest contrivance here).
“More like apple” is crazy talk, and is a huge warning sign. Good for GM that he’s gone.
People will fight in the streets over the latest Apple product.
People will not fight in the streets over a cavalier/daewoo/spark/aveo.
See also: Ron Johnson/JC penny and the exact same magical thinking and hilarious line of BS.
People don’t fight in the streets over $12 mom pants.
I bet he is made to walk the plank soon too for the same reasons.
If Akerson ran him off, then it’s probably a smart move.
On this you’re wrong.
People will kill each other over the last Apple product in a store because of the marketing, not because of the product.
People were ready to kill each other over Tickle Me Elmo’s a decade or so ago. Cabbage Patch Kids? Pet Rock? PT Cruiser launch? Miata launch?
The Tickle Me Elmo is nothing special – but the marketing did a great job of convincing the consumer they needed it.
I agree with Ron Johnson at JC Penny – the “how” the store is run model won’t work in a department store and he is running JCP into the ground.
C170guy: He had to say that ‘crazy talk.’ It was GM’s crazy idea to be sought after like Apple (although if GM hired Steve Jobs, he’d be fired the first day, for inappropriate behavior).
Remember this guy was at Nissan for what, a total of 3 weeks after leaving Hyundai and before moving to GM? Sounds like a serial job hopper to me, never sticking around long enough to build a track record. If his only claim to fame at GM was recycling stale ideas from several years ago (employee pricing and no questions asked reutrn policy), then he obviously isn’t worth the $$ he is getting paid. Akerson did the right thing – pull the plug on this guy before he does some real damage.
Ewanick revolutionized Hyundai’s marketing strategy in 3 years. He was at Nissan for six weeks before GM lured him to its lair.
I think two years at GM was more than enough for Ewanick to see what a sinking ship it really is, and how thoroughly Dunce Cap Dan is able to bungle even the simplest tasks. In fact, I’d also wager he realized that the automaker is almost completely unmarketable, thanks to the bailout stigma and everpresent Government Motors/UAW stink that permeates any mention of GM and its brands.
Ewanick was smart to leave, and another company will be smart enough to snatch him up quickly. I’ll bet that’s already happened; all that’s left is the announcement.
Joel was given too much credit for turning Hyundai around. Sure he had some great marketing strategies, but remember they went from zero to hero on the strength of several all new products in untapped segments…think Genesis Coupe and Genesis Sedan. All Joel had to do was communicate how much better the new Hyundai lineup was, with pricing well under the competition. If a dealer can’t sell a Sonata for $3k under Camry, which is how most dealers in Florda adverstised the Sonata, then something is wrong.
At GM, same story….lots of fresh new product, but couldn’t execute and communicate the value to the customer. His fault, not Dan Akersons. Again what fresh new ideas did Joel bring? Seriously its not 1999. All I have seen from GM under the Ewanik regime is “Chevy Runs Deep”…to “Lets try employee pricing again..it worked then….lets not advertise on Facebook…no more Super Bowl Ads…tell our agencies to cut their costs” Lots of “what we wont do as GM” and not much “here’s where we are going”. No vision. No leadership. Bye Bye Joel.
Thanks for the correction–fixed it.
I figured that after Sherman Helmsley died Ebonics would be Movin’ On Out!
seriously, this guy did nothing to improve sales or dealer relations. he continued the same nonsensical incentive cross word puzzles, came back with month end fire sales, kept the stair step SFE and EBE and added even more incremental payouts. his Chevy Runs Deep was more like Chevy Runs Dumb, and his cronies were put into positions they were not qualified for.
if this was Akerson’s move, hat’s off Danny Boy.
Buickman…Many time your comments have been contriversial. Many times I have disagreed with you.
The sad part was,and is, your always right.
not always Mikey but thank you sir.
“GM spokesman Greg Martin said Ewanick was departing “because he failed to meet the company’s expectations of an employee of the company.” Martin declined to elaborate.”
From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120729/AUTO0103/207290332#ixzz223WSpyx6
Pretty serious stuff, most likely some form of personal misconduct.
I have heard that JE was not a great asset at any previous employer, but made sure he was near the action. I would credit John Krafcik for Huyndai’s marketing success, especially seeing that he was a true marking pro with a documented track record of direct personal achievement.
Rmwill – the Detroit News article contains some great info:
Prior to Hyundai, Ewanick held executive positions at Hinckley Company — Monitor Clipper, Palmer Johnson, Porsche Cars North America, Saatchi & Saatchi Team One Advertising and Yamaha Motor Corp.
Ewanick earned his bachelor’s degree in marketing from California State University, Northridge
Its pretty clear now, he was a lightweight puching with the heavyweights. Never stayed in one place long enough to make a difference. Got caught in an upswell and Hyundai and rode that big wave as long as he could. Then clearly got in over his head at GM, where it takes real skill to market mediocre product to the great masses.
Cal State Northridge, ouch!
What’s wrong with CSUN?!?!?!
Or CSUs for that matter?
Roman – Nothing wrong with CSU, I went to CSU Fullerton and LBSU myself. That said, CSUN isn’t known for producing strategic marketing visionaries. Its just further proof that Joel was in way over his head and GM became his Waterloo. Key point: Telling his advertisers to cut their budgets and fees, and then he goes out and sponsors Manchester United for 5 years. Can anyone tell me how that makes sense? Is anyone going to go out and say…”wait, hold on. let me check out the new Sonic,” because of a Bow Tie put on the side of a soccer field? GM sales aren’t doing well, and rule #1 for your chief marketing honcho is to sell the car while building the brand. Joel did neither.
Wow. Wish I had THAT much demand. Hired away from Hyundai and Nissan? Guy must be a damn good designer.
Something smells funny here… starting with Greg Martin’s statement. “Failed to meet the company’s expectations of an employee” is not standard boilerplate, especially in a company with a tradition of discrete resignations and corporate exile. And GM’s executive culture aside, if JE is the “serial job hunter” folks accuse him of being, you’d think he would have seen this coming and lined something else up. GM says it wasn’t about the Facebook/Super Bowl flaps, but implies that something fairly serious happened… it’s all very curious.
Let’s remember, by the way, that JE was brought in as the US Marketing boss and was promoted to Global CMO within six months. That promotion was as surprising to me as this firing is… my impression has been that JE’s initial GM ads were pretty mediocre, but that they’ve been improving over the last 6-9 months. Meanwhile, David Lyon just resigned days before taking his new job as head of Opel design, according to GMAuthority. My spidey-sense says there’s something nasty going on in the RenCen… or Ed Whitacre is back in the building.
“Something smells funny here… starting with Greg Martin’s statement. ‘Failed to meet the company’s expectations of an employee’ is not standard boilerplate”
It’s most likely pretty simple, i.e. he pissed somebody off. Some likely possible culprits:
-They didn’t like something that he was doing
-He wouldn’t do something that they wanted him to do
-Some sort of personality conflict/ culture clash
-The CEO wanted his own hire in that position, and was looking for reasons to dislike him
Regardless of how good or bad that he was, it’s not good form for managers to trash talk an exiting senior level employee. Either Mr. Martin spoke out of turn, or else there is something amiss in the culture there.
PCH – I agree that “it’s not good form for managers to trash talk an exiting senior level employee. Either Mr. Martin spoke out of turn, or else there is something amiss in the culture there.”
But your list of options excludes the one that says he actually did do something wrong (theft, ethical breach etc). I agree your list of options is more likely but until we heard more we cannot say for sure what happened. Ed has a valid point that the comments were not normal exec speak and something more serious may have happened.
Well, the WSJ is reporting that
“GM told Mr. Ewanick that he was being removed for failing to properly vet the financial details of a European soccer-sponsorship deal that he struck recently, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Taken with Martin’s comments, this paints a scary picture. As global CMO, Ewanick controlled a $4.5b budget…
“GM told Mr. Ewanick that he was being removed for failing to properly vet the financial details of a European soccer-sponsorship deal that he struck recently, according to people familiar with the matter.”
I would give it better than 50/50 odds that the Man United deal is just an excuse. For one thing, I would expect GM’s attorneys and a financial analyst or six to have evaluated the deal and its language, so this premise seems implausible.
According to the WSJ: “The people familiar with the situation said the ouster wasn’t a result of Mr. Ewanick’s recent decision to stop GM’s paid advertising on social-networking website Facebook Inc. However, Mr. Ewanick’s choice to discuss the move with The Wall Street Journal days before Facebook’s initial public offering of stock didn’t go over well among executives in GM’s top ranks, people familiar with the matter said. The comments brought additional scrutiny to Facebook’s business model ahead of the IPO.”
Translation: They think that he’s a bit too inclined to speak to the press in situations that GM considers to be inappropriate.
I agree with PCH – you would expect the finance and legal department to vet the sponsorship deal. Wouldn`t Ewanick be expected to just think of the “creative idea” and not be too involved ion the nuts and bolts finance side?
‘It’s most likely pretty simple, i.e. he pissed somebody off.’
Valid point. With that said, however, if I got ‘let go’ for simply ‘pissing someone off’, I would’ve been let go years ago from my slave Acura tech job.
Despite my last post, this guy must’ve either really ‘pissed someone off’, or really didn’t know WTF he was doing, by all posted accounts, is likely why he was shit-canned.
The incentives, below MSRP pricing and (just what the hell was his rationale other than a taste in Football (the rest of the world, not American) for ‘sponsoring’ Manchester United?
They probably had a good laugh in the locker room because of this sponsorship, since they all drive Bentley and Range Rover anyway…lol
“Wouldn`t Ewanick be expected to just think of the “creative idea” and not be too involved ion the nuts and bolts finance side?”
He was in marketing, not advertising. The creative work is largely performed by the advertising agency.
The point that I was making above is that when companies trash talk outgoing employees, then there is usually something personal involved. If it was just business or normal office politics, then the public spin would be that Ewanick would be leaving to “explore new opportunities”, “for personal reasons”, etc., and that would be the end of it.
But for GM to publicly state that he “failed to meet expectations” suggests that they don’t want him just to leave, they want to screw him over. That’s personal, not just business.
It doesn’t speak well of GM as an organization that they would engage in that sort of public sniping. You don’t air your dirty laundry like that to the press. If a high-level recruiter contacted you to take his job, you’d be wise not to take it — you could be next.
I have to agree with EN.
JE is out – for whatever reason (his or GM’s), and Mr. Lyon just balked at starting the Opel job after he accepted it.
Something funny’s going on at GM, and it doesn’t smell good.
As for Mr. Ewanick – he’s had 3 jobs in 6 years; I’d be loathe to hire him. Either he bails just before getting fired, or he can’t actually deliver the goods, or he really is just a serial job hopper. Whatever it is, he’s radioactive now.
Whose behind to JE grab?
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a long story about this. Officially he was fired for screwing up an European soccer sponsorship. But it also mentions the poor super bowl ads and his pulling Facebook ads. Also, I guess people in the advertising biz hate him.
Soccer? What’s that? No really… I bet the Kindergartners were really ticked off he did that to his game.
Those kindergarten kids have a lot of money. The most valuable sports franchises in 2012:
#1 Manchester United ($2.23 billion)
#2 Real Madrid ($1.88 billion)
#3 New York Yankees ($1.85 billion)
#3 Dallas Cowboys ($1.85 billion)
#5 Washington Redskins ($1.56 billion)
#6 Los Angeles Dodgers ($1.4 billion)
#6 New England Patriots ($1.4 billion)
#8 Barcelona ($1.31 billion)
#9 New York Giants ($1.3 billion)
#10 Arsenal ($1.29 billion)
I was really joking, on a tangent, having fun with the “US’s disinterest in soccer while the world loves it” thing.
Thanks for the stats from the World Soccer Federation’s, “How To Defend Soccer” pamphlet.
AB says he was dismissed.
GM Authority is reporting that Ewanick did not get corporate approval for the Manchester United partnership deal. (http://gmauthority.com/blog/2012/07/gm-global-chief-marketing-officer-joel-ewanick-resigns/)
If true then I could see getting fired for that. However if true how did the deal get signed and paid for without corporate executive approval – seems like basic governance for something this expensive.
Maybe he signed an LOI — or just made the press release, making it very difficult for GM to back out?
There are many things a senior executive can do that no one can stop, they will only catch up with him (or her) later.
Boring ads and mediocre tag lines. The new feel good “we are american” ads don’t work anymore nor did they work 5 years ago when more people cared about buying American. The 2013 Malibu ads are terrible. Some kid in South Korea did a better job with a 50 dollar handycam. The car looks like a effin 5 series, only better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBQziLWsf-A
Though I am glad to see Joel go, I wonder what is cooking at RenCen. Why call to attention such a high profile departure. GM doesn’t need the media scrutiny nor bad publicity at this time. Are they pulling out all the stops cause the situation is very drastic within GM that we don’t know of? Is there something bad going on behind the scenes and all the record profits were just make believe? Or has GM learn’t from the past and is trying to be proactive rather than maintain the status quo? I am hoping its the latter. Also hoping he wasn’t let go because Dan wanted a “yes man” to work for him.
GM is making the best products in its history. The engineers and designers are working their butts off and it shows in the product (the spark being an exception). Its now up to marketing to get the message across. Its a shame they can’t buy a break even if they tried. No company has received so much hate, negativism, and ridicule GM has had to endure. This has made me appreciate them more for what they are. I just hope they stick around for another 100 years so people will have the choice to buy great products like CTS-V’s, ZL1’s, and ZR1’s (none of which i can afford btw). When she grows up, I want my 2 week old baby girl to decide between a Camaro or a Corolla as her first car.
So much job swapping at such a short time frame can’t be good for the resume…
I was thinking the same thing. Companies frantic to find an outside solution to internal problems (instead of looking in the mirror) probably tend to ignore this.
The whole career at each company probably goes like this…
1. Get hired
2. Learn who in the company already has good ideas in place
3. Use those ideas
4. Leave for more money and fame
I cant believe that we’ve heard the real reason yet. The WSJ reporting on the soccer deal, just doesnt make sense. He may not have been everyone’s favorite but the ‘Chevy Runs Deep’ thing wasnt bad enough to get him the axe and he was on the way to cutting more than his target from the ad budgets. If I had to guess my feeling is that he tried to move the old girl too much too fast for the tastes of some. Remember there isnt a smiling Mulally anywhere around the place to change the culture for him. Nothing adds up to me yet.
I wonder if Nissan wants him back?
The WSJ also just did the aluminum Ford story, which got legs and has been syndicated across the internet and in print – while Ford motor company had to put out a press release calling it premature.(Now there’s a fun PR/marketing problem for ya.)
In other words, bogus and invented, and it has not been retracted/modified here or anywhere else really, but for one or two publications – a PR wire or two, and buried somewhere in that Californian car blog.
Will there be more Al someday? Maybe – who knows, Sure why not? Nope, not yet. Pick one.
So I can’t really find them credible when it comes to the auto industry anymore. So some soccer sponsorship deal gone bad as the reason for this- who knows – I doubt the WSJ does. They just kinda print whatever comes to mind anymore.
let’s make some changes that will yield results. your friendly Buickman has the answers, for example:
let’s begin August with the GM Extra Mile Program. first step is “America went the Extra Mile for GM, Now GM goes the Extra Mile for America”.
1.) take delivery of a new GM vehicle and if the rebate/incentive goes up in the next 30 days, you get the money. Don’t be afraid to buy a car today!”. like it? let’s do it. then we do step two.
“All it takes is a good car and someone to sell it”
J Flint
knowing how to ask for the dance increases the chance you’ll head for the floor, even the door. :)
The guy couldn’t move the GM metal, so he got canned. I don’t think you necessarily need to have a good product, or a good price, to sell cars. What you need is good brand image, and GM doesn’t have that except in their line of pickup trucks. Their car lineup is OK, but they aren’t flying off the dealer lots. This guy did a good job at Hyundai creating brand image, and couldn’t do the same for GM. Toyota is eating GM’s lunch this year, even with all the accelerator and earthquake problems they had, they are back in a big way.