While it's beyond me why GM is using Ed Whiteacre in a new TV spot, their new board of directors chief, who said at his first press conference that he doesn't know much about cars, one of the new Cadillac commercials is right-on.
First, the Caddy commercial, one of four new TV spots which debuted last weekend.
It's for their SRX crossover, is dark and moody, uses a popular tune from the "alternative" category ... but what got me was the final line: "SRX --- The Cadillac of crossovers."
When I grew up, if some product was considered the best in its field, it was called the "Cadillac" of those products. And that saying had been around for many years before I ever heard it (I was born in 1954). In fact for decades, Cadillac's tagline in their advertising was, "The standard of the world." And in that time and place, Caddy was.
Today, the name "Lexus" is often invoked to denote a great product; best-in-class.
GM's new Mr. Excitement, Ed Whiteacre
Maybe the line hit my nostalgia button just right, but I liked the fact that GM, having suffered from a terrible inferiority complex for the past 20 years (often based, in truth, on some pretty bad product) seems, at least for this commercial, to have gotten some guts back and is not afraid say Cadillac is something special.
Of course, the first battle is to get people into dealerships, folks who haven't visited a Detroit car-makers' store in, in some cases, three generations. Especially in the southwest, a probably not-too-apocryphal story says ask the average 30-year old if they ever heard of a car named "Buick," and the response will be something like: "Oh yeah, my uncle had one of those years ago and he always had problems with it." Then they get in their Honda and drive off.
These are not people planning to spend the weekend shopping the local GM outlets.
On that note, I must mention I just finished driving the 2010 Buick LaCrosse for over a week. The LaCrosse "target car" for GM was the Lexus ES, and they've bypassed that car in almost every respect. Any family looking for a new sedan should test-drive the LaCrosse before buying anything else. There, I said it. I am rooting for GM; in America, only a fool wouldn't.
2010 Buick LaCrosse
On using the board chairman to do the "And let the best car win" spot: Whiteacre needs a fast charisma transplant if people are going to respond. This is not Lee Iacocca. He looks interchangeable with every bland top car exec Detroit has produced in the last 100 years. I mean, this guy used to run AT&T.
And where's Bob Lutz?
Lutz, the GM exec who is overseeing advertising (as just one of his jobs) did Whiteacre (and GM) no favors by apparently not fighting the decision for Whiteacre to do the ads (and if he did fight, he lost). Maybe Whiteacre insisted on it, maybe Lutz was kissing the boss' ass and telling him how great he'd be on TV; maybe he's hoping Whiteacre's spot will fail and step into the TV ad himself.
If GM indeed has guts again, someone there should remember that "Guts" is the name of Lutz's book and without doubt he'd be best to represent the corporation to the TV audience. Lutz is today's Iacocca; he's a natural on-camera and compelling to watch.
Bob Lutz in his natural habitat; the center of attention
A lot of people I talk with, and I mean people who do not live and breathe cars, don't know Whiteacre's name or his history, but they do know he made that "I don't know much about cars" statement. Apparently, Letterman and Leno and the rest, who still mention this line on occasion, do have a lot of people watching. And it hasn't done GM any good.
Some late info on the company's "60 day guarantee:" Automotive News reports that instead of the guarantee, buyers can take an extra $500 rebate on their purchase. The trick is that the salespeople, apparently, are not allowed to mention this to shoppers, and buyers are made the offer only after they've decided to buy and are in the "Finance and Insurance" office in the dealership, signing documents and being sold undercoating and car alarms.
On the back of that, the financial website "24/7 Wall St," is reporting that some 3.5% of GM dealers, about 150 of them, are opting out of the guarantee program altogether, the site saying, "Although GM has stated it will foot the bill for returns, it appears there's enough concern (or confusion) that it's causing a car-fuffle."
2010 Cadillac SRX
GM offers a good 5 year/100,000 mile powertrain warranty, but instead of the money-back guarantee, why not increase the warranty to 10 years, as Hyundai offers? One reason is that the warranty will cost GM more money in the long run than the money-back guarantee, but matching many of the import warranties would say a lot about what GM thinks of their new product. Whether GM thinks they have the money (or can get permission from the White House to plan for those big expenditures) is another thing.
Now you know what I think. What about you? Is GM whistling through the graveyard or do the Whiteacre and other new TV spots, plus the 60-day guarantee and selling cars (in California) on Ebay make sense and have GM headed in the right direction? Would a 10-year warranty make you more comfortable shopping GM products?
Most important, will all of this get you into a GM store?
Many car-maker employees read this blog, so this is a chance to tell them what you think.
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The biggest challenge for GM is getting the non-believers into showrooms. It seems that they've solved a lot of the problems with their models and have recently been putting out some very good product. People who would consider GM will take note of this, and I believe GM has done these consumers good with their new line. However, you still have many Japanese/foreign fanboys who will not, as of now, be caught dead in an American car. And those people make up significant market share.
Thus, one of the best things GM can do right now (other than letting their cars speak for themselves and giving the consumer time to realize they are for real), is to challenge people to pit their cars against the best. I believe that if using an objective unbiased eye even this hard-to-convince demographic has to admit that many of GM's cars are competitive with foreign automakers.
I hope you're right and buyers go to GM stores. I've criticized GM for 35 years (and Ford and Chrysler) for never truly replying to the import invasion of the early 1970s, precipitated by the first oil crisis. But I want to see GM succeed ... too many people work in the US and around the world for GM and GM suppliers. In spite of my hope, I think the question of whether they will succeed is still open. But we have to accept that the car market in the US is NEVER going to be what it was, at 12 or 14 million units a year. China and India, Africa, eastern Europe, will all bypass us.
Most people think the only place to get objective opinions on cars is Consumer Reports, which is unfortunate.
There are third-party companies which do the testing you're talking about, and I hope GM spends the money to get out their quality message. I just spent a week in the 2010 Buick LaCrosse, and I'd have no problem buying one for a family sedan.
On NPR, Robert McNeil interviewed GM's Bob Lutz recently and asked him how the company can overcome 30 years of bad press. All Lutz could say was, "Well, our current team wasn't here when those mistakes were made." Weak.
Steve
again! Why? I'm glad you asked.
As it started, I didn't know what was being advertised. I did
know it was 'another car commercial.' I did not know who
this bland guy was. What I did notice and what piqued my
curiosity was ...... right at the end, the tag line
"And let the best car win."
That..... is a challenge that interests me. And yes, when I recently
leased my second new Nissan, I looked at the GM line-up (and
almost...... almost.....) and the Ford line-up.
And also, yes, I too remember when the new Caddy was the
Oooh! and Ahhhh! of the town! Thanks for the reminder.
I still think Lee Iacocca shouting, "If you can find a better car, buy it!" will be remembered long after Ed Whiteacre is gone. Subtle doesn't work in TV advertising; oh, maybe it does for those in the business or students of advertising and marketing, but the reason most ads are loud and obnoxious is because that's what works with the most people.
Apparently, the vast majority of people buying GM cars and trucks right now are foregoing the money-back guarantee and taking instead the $500 rebate when it's offered to them (it's offered in the business office when you're signing contracts; salespeople aren't allowed to mention there's a choice). The guarantee got them some good press, and I think buyers refusing it is good, too --- apparently these buyers believe in the product enough to trust it for more than 60 days ...
Steve
I too enjoy that they're advertising Cadillacs as something above and beyond... but are they really? I like their styling. I like the CTS, the SRX, and especially the XLR, but I'm still not convinced they're on par for quality with the vehicles they compete with from Lexus, BMW and Mercedes.
I freely admit I'm prejudiced against Buick, I think they should have been canned before Oldsmobile, but really... they'd be the last place I'd go for a GM vehicle. I just don't see the point or where they fit in the overall product structure. Their upper end pricing cuts into Cadillac territory, their lower end pricing cuts into Chevrolet, so unless for some reason you really want a Buick, there are better choices. Not to mention, I still think the last car they made worth buying was the Grand National in 1987, and LaCrosse is a silly name for a car. :)
So what does that say about Cadillac? Doesn't that dilute the Caddy brand? Hasn't GM learned their lesson about trying to sell the same-themed cars in different stores?
I say get rid of Buick and GMC ... Cadillac as the luxury brand, Chevy trucks instead of the GMC brand. By the way, if they combined GMC and Chevy truck sales GM would have the best-selling truck in the US --- but they've given that away to Ford for over 50 years!
Oldsmobile died on its own, unfortunately. I still think their final effort, the Aurora, is one of the best-looking cars ever made. And with the V8 engine it was plenty fun to drive! But they couldn't overcome their sales slide and their desperate "This is not your father's Oldsmobile" slogan (now considered one the worst ad campaigns in history) and John Rock, the division's last general manager, almost worked himself to death trying to turn it around.
I attended Olds' 100th birthday celebration in Lansing, and met the great grandson of Ransom Eli Olds ... Ransom Eli Olds III. It was a thrill.
And my father did have an Oldsmobile. We had a brand-new 1961 Super 88 convertible, fire engine red in color, and we drove that car from NYC to southern California in 1961, still using much of the original Rt 66.
So I loved my father's Oldsmobile!
Steve
For the most part, they are just as good or better than the other guys. The problem is that after periods of crap quality and poor management, many people refuse to believe it. I can go through a list of 70s and 80s American cars that I owned that fell apart prematurely. I can also do the same thing with some Japanese cars that had some very serious defects.
When you lose a customer, you may never be able to get them back.
When Detroit carmakers were booming, they'd send any piece of junk to their dealers, and "Let the dealer fix it" was their mantra.
Deming eventually did some work for Ford. The highest award for quality in Japan is the Deming Prize, presented annually by the emperor.
Steve
In Europe, they were called estate cars, and now that they're back in fashion after the SUV craze, they're still called estate cars. Why do we need a new name, but they're content with the old one?
Is it that we have shorter memories, or are we that desperate for anything that seems new?
Even though, yes, it's really just a station wagon.
The product lines are headed in the right direction. The styling for Cadillac has gotten much more aggressive and attracts a younger market, but I think it's a mistake to celebrate the Cadillac pedigree. The message should be "this isn't you grandfather's Cadillac". They should be self-deprecating.
That's how they achieved success with the Escalade. They portrayed Escalade drivers as people that might be armed and dangerous -- not your stereotypical Cadillac drivers. Cadillacs are luxury cars for people who want to feel powerful and inspire fear in everybody else on the road.
Chevy just needs to lean on the modest success of the Malibu and ride out the next year. They have three compelling new cars for the 2011 model year -- Volt, Cruze, and Spark -- all of which I expect to be very competitive.
Buick works best as a luxury brand exclusively for the emerging Chinese market. China loves Buick for some reason. In America, though, the brand is damaged beyond repair. If Tiger Woods couldn't fix it, nobody can.
Oh they inspire fear all right. Usually because the drivers are such idiots I never know what crazy maneuver they're going to pull.
Either use the original, or use something original!