Given what it’s been through over the last several decades, GM is lucky to have any hard-core fans left at all. And yet sites like GMinsidenews.com [full disclosure: GMI is owned by TTAC’s parent company, Vertical Scope] have thrived as havens of near-unadulterated GM pride, bankruptcy and bailout notwithstanding. So when true-believer sites like GMI run works subtitled GM Annual Feature “Deletions” Continue: 2011 shows that not all of Old GM’s habits are dead–yet, TTAC sits up and takes notice (as soon as we come sniffing around and find it, anyway). The piece opens:
Just the other day, we posted the product changes for every 2011 General Motors product in the United States. This has become an annual feature on GMI, as it is always interesting to see what tweaks or screw-ups GM is adding to the next model year. The main problem we find in the annual model year changeis is the practice of removing content from products. After glancing at the 2011 stuff, I was surprised to see “New GM” continuing the trend of deleting content.’
To be fair, the 2011 changes show fewer content “deletions” than previous model years; however the fact that any content is being entirely deleted from a product is almost laughable considering GM’s dire attempt to win back U.S. customers. Perhaps other OEM’s delete features as well (trust me, they do), but they also don’t have a perception problem to deal with. GM, you’re building great products now…stop deleting content off of them every year.
GM’s now-infamous advertisement touting the payback of government loans “may have elasticized the reality of things,” in the words of Steve Rattner, but stretching the truth apparently pays off. Automotive News [sub] reports that a London public perception-tracking firm surveyed some 5,000 consumers, and found that The General’s image has improved since the ad started running. Of course, on YouGov’s brand image scale of 100 to negative 100, GM is up only five points to “17.” Clearly there’s still work to do.
Whenever TTAC took GM to task for branding run amok and excessive platform sharing, the example of Volkswagen has always been the key counterfactual. With seven brands available in Europe, the Volkswagen-Audi group is the continental GM, always looking for another way to repackage a pedestrian FWD platform. The only difference is that VW has actually been growing. But Wolfsburg’s brand profligacy is starting to bear some GM-style bitter fruit. Skoda has been surprisingly strong of late, actually making problems for the Volkswagen brand in certain markets. Seat, on the other hand, is not doing so well. With only one factory, at Martorell, near Barcelona, Seat has always been a slightly niche player, offering older VW designs with some Pontiac-style “emotional” styling flair and a sportier image. The problem now, as Seat CEO James Muir tells The WSJ [sub], is that
The brand really is too small for this plant
Running at only 60 percent of its 500,000 unit capacity, Seat is too small for its lone plant. As a result, VW is launching a last-ditch effort to save its dying brand. Read More >
After a solid six months of cringe-worthy Jeep ads, Chrysler is replacing ad agency Global Hue for the launch of the forthcoming 2011 Grand Cherokee. The Grand Cherokee’s launch materials will be developed by Wieden + Kennedy, which is currently the lead creative agency for the Dodge brand, and recently created the trippy “Alright, Kittens” spot for the Grand Caravan. According to AgencySpy [via Jalopnik], GlobalHue will continue to be Jeep’s lead agency, despite offering few signs that it actually understands the brand. What do we mean by that? Hit the jump for more. Read More >
“Edgy” ads are in for marketers looking to reignite America’s love affair with the minivan. If you thought Toyota’s “Swagger Wagon” Sienna spot seemed strange, check out this inexplicably surreal ad for Dodge’s Caravan. The ad’s creator Wieden + Kennedy was hired to give Dodge a hipper image, but thus far it has singularly failed to capture the magic of its previous auto work, like Honda’s “Cog” spot. Maybe that’s why Chrysler Group decided to go with Gotham for its forthcoming corporate image-enhancing ad campaign.
Hyundai made a proposal to Chrysler earlier this year under which the U.S. automaker would build a truck for Hyundai based on Chrysler’s Ram truck platform… Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne rebuffed Hyundai’s initial approach in February… saying the automaker needs to focus on its established turnaround plans under Fiat SpA. But Hyundai continues to look at truck options and could come back to Chrysler, according to two of those with knowledge of the talks, who were not authorized to discuss the matter because the closed-door discussions were preliminary.
Ram sales were down 23 percent last month, down 20 percent calendar-year-to-date, and down 24.3 percent in rolling 12-month totals. Hyundai is doing just fine without a pickup. Chrysler may have been crazy to turn down a shot at easy volume (that might have gone to Nissan), but Hyundai would be crazier still to ask a second time. After all, Volkswagen’s Chrysler rebadge, the Routan minivan, has sold only 14,580 units in the last 12 months.
From Ferrari’s manual-free pledge to BMW’s move to front-wheel-drive, the auto industry is breaking down formerly untouchable barriers left and right. The latest: longtime four-wheel-drive specialist Land Rover will build a front-drive version of its forthcoming compact “SUV Coupe” known as the LRX. The new model, which debuts at this fall’s Paris Auto Show, will generally be available with all-wheel-drive, but after launch a front-drive base version will become available. Though Landie had previously foresworn FWD models as being incompatible with the brand’s values, there’s been a change of heart and according to Autocar, the Tata Motors-owned marque
cannot ignore the growth of the two-wheel-drive SUV segment
There’s been no word thus far about the LRX’s availability in the US, but if it does arrive stateside don’t expect FWD versions to be imported. And don’t expect the LRX codename to grace its rear deck either: five names are said to be under consideration for the model, one of which is “Land Rover Compact” and none of which is “LRX.”
Automotive News Digital Edition [sub] reports that Mercedes-Benz is holding consumer clinics in the US, gathering input ahead of its launch of the first front-drive Mercedes models to be sold in the US. Sales of the B-Class-based front-drive models won’t being until “after 2011,” and Mercedes admits that a design freeze has not yet taken place. Still, one thing is certain: prospective customers are not being shown an MPV-like hatchback along the lines of the current B-Class that’s sold in Europe and Canada because of dealer concerns. Says MB-USA development boss Bernhard Glaser:
[Dealers] were concerned about the previous generation because it did stand out and that is kind of a whole different brand sell that you have to try and jump over. This will be seamless.
Perhaps the most fundamental challenge facing bailed-out financial and auto firms is convincing consumers to leave aside their anti-bailout prejudices and start buying their products. For GM, the first step in this process was as simple as repaying a loan and airing a “Mission Accomplished” advertisement that did everything but show Ed Whitacre landing on an aircraft carrier. For GM’s former captive finance arm, GMAC, escaping the stain of the bailout is a more prosaic matter. Having already launched an online consumer-oriented banking arm by the name of “Ally Bank,” the finance company is adopting the innocuous Ally moniker for its entire business, reports the Detroit News. Read More >
Considering the Suburban so essentially captures the tenuous line between myth and reality in American life, it’s a pity we don’t have 75 years of sales data to put some hard numbers behind the nameplate’s 75 years of history. Luckily, our data does go back to 1995, when America’s whirlwind romance with the SUV was just beginning to get serious. Given that, as Paul points out in today’s history, Suburbans didn’t become popular as family haulers until sometime in the early eighties, it’s safe to assume that 1996-2004 represents the absolute high-water mark for the nameplate’s volume. And ye gods has that volume dropped off ever since.
Despite breaking new ground in the field of brand leverage with its Ferrari World Abu Dhabi theme park, Ferrari does seem to have lost the plot a bit in relation to its “other” business building expensive sportscars. Ferrari’s abandonment of the manual transmission might be justified by faster lap times at Fiorano, and the lightning-fast, dual-wet-clutch transmissions that replace them certainly seem to help keep the Scuderia at the bleeding edge of technology (even if they’re designed and built by Getrag). But underlying the faster times, higher speeds and “digital supercar” honorifics from the motoring press, there’s a sense that Ferrari’s progress must accommodate an ever-more ambitious business plan as much as design the world’s most capable and emotive sportscars. And it’s starting to bear some troubling fruit. Read More >
There is a major shift underway in the Chinese auto market. Cars are morphing from something exclusively owned by the rich to an everyday item. Sure, luxury cars are big in China. But the volume growth is in low cost cars. As a result, the market share of sino-foreign joint ventures is eroding. Local players, such as BYD are gaining fast. The foreigners are getting worried. Read More >
Buick has confirmed long-standing rumors that it will offer a compact (Delta II) sedan (likely a rebadge of the Opel Astra) and a subcompact (Gamma II) MPV “in the near future,” reports the Detroit News.With the Regal launching this year, these two vehicles will create a Buick lineup with twice the options of its current three-car lineup. That current lineup competes in only two vehicle segments, whereas by 2013, Buick expects to compete in 47 percent of market segments with a lineup of vehicles that will all be newer than the Regal. In other words, if you think Buick’s problem is product, GM agrees with you… and it’s revamping the brand’s entire lineup over the next three years.
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