Editorial: General Motors Death Watch 225: Surprised?

A recent TV ad extols the wonders of the Cadillac CTS. Suddenly, the image zooms backwards and flips around to become a sparkling GM logo. “The CTS is made by General Motors,” the narrator intones. “Surprised?” I sure was. I mean, I understand the intended subtext: See? We’re not a total basket case. But as my father would say, if you’re so smart how come you’re not rich? Students of this series know that GM has plenty of answers to that question. The only thing neophytes should clock: none of these answers involve the phrase “we fucked up.” That and the fact that GM wants you to believe that their turnaround depends on building more cars like the Cadillac CTS. Uh-oh.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the CTS. It’s not a Bimmer beater or a Merc mauler or a Lexus liquidator. But it’s a fine car in its own right, especially at a discount. (Yes, there is that.) Just as the Chevrolet Silverado offers tremendous value-for-money, especially at a discount. (Yes, there is that). By the same token, the Chevrolet Malibu. And therein the problem: it is a token.

The vast majority of GM products– and there are over 120 of them– are, well… let’s not go there. There’s only so much J.D. Power Initial Quality Survey data a man can drink-in before it all starts to taste like Kool-Aid. So, back to my main point…

What’s with the blending of Cadillac and GM? Does anyone care that GM owns Cadillac? OK, given that taxayers will soon have a $13.4b financial interest in The General’s product portfolio, they might appreciate the heads-up. But GM’s paternal relationship with Caddy cuts both ways. On the upside, the CTS is GM’s automotive poster child. On the downside, the GM – Caddy hook-up rivals Jerry Lee Lewis’ first marriage to his cousin as “one those things with which marketing-minded folk shouldn’t bother the buying public.”

The CTS ad’s muddied message is symbolic and symptomatic of GM’s ongoing, endemic and abject inability to manage the core of its business. Cadillac is a far stronger brand than GM, which now stands for executive greed and incompetence, union intransigence, environmental foot-dragging, failed manufacturing, back-room politics and corporate socialism.

Cadillac is such a strong brand– still– that all it really needs is world-class products. Even if you put the CTS in that category, that leaves nothing much worth talking about, never mind buying.

GM is supposedly addressing this deficiency with the new SRX. The view from here: the SRX will be the CTS of luxury utes. It will offer plus-sized comfort priced higher than smaller, less expensive foreign competitors, for less than the cost of its larger, more expensive foreign competitors. How great is that?

Not as great as a no-compromise f-off sedan with presence, power and panache. That’s the popular conception of a Cadillac, as witnessed by the success of the blinged-out, gas-guzzling Escalade (to each their own in the panache department). In fact, all GM had to do with Caddy was build the world’s best automotive products and charge customers exorbitant amounts of money for the privilege of owning them.

Of course, GM can’t do that now. Now that the American automaker’s mortgaged its future to the suckle on the taxpayer teat, Cadillac is hemmed-in by GM’s need to satisfy its new owners: the democratic party. These days, Caddy’s alphanumeric model names might as well start with the letters PC.

This folks, is GM’s strongest brand. Saturn’s branding is in such a shambles that GM’s own TV commercial shows a customer who thinks he’s in the wrong showroom. Buick is dead. HUMMER and Saab are… never mind, GM’s selling/starving them. GMC? Pontiac? Chevrolet? When it comes to branding, GM ain’t got game.

Never mind a “viable business.” Can an American car company survive without viable brands? Not in this market.

I don’t mean a market suffering from seemingly terminal consumer constipation. I’m talking about an automotive arena filled to the rafters with a wide range of highly-focused automotive brands. From Toyota’s reliability rep to the MINI’s fun factor, from unattainable Ferraris to stack ’em high and sell ’em cheap Hyundais, there’s no niche left behind. Without a single compelling brand, GM is nothing more than taxpayer-funded chum in a shark-infested ocean.

So what’s Cadillac’s killer app? The CTS. And what’s CTS’ killer app? Cadillac. That’s the kind of self-referential logic with which it’s impossible to argue and, it seems, impossible to eliminate. But GM’s fortunes depend on better branding. Until and unless GM masters the art of creating and sustaining a tightly-focused automotive brand or eight, they are simpliy killing time. Even as they are slowly, gradually, inexorably killing the only truly valuable assets they’ve ever owned.