GM Marketing Maven Renames Perception Gap

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

Back to this morning’s wildly exaggerated rumors of GM’s resurrection, via today’s USA Today. After Wagoner has his Annie solo, Sharon Silke Carty (I ordered one of those for my wife for Valentine’s Day!) offers a prescription for GM’s Return to Greatness. The fact that the list doesn’t come from Wagoner is, perhaps, the most irrefutable evidence of the CEO’s incompetence ever not documented (if you know what I mean). Top of the list, in bold and all: More federal loans. Need I say any more? I thought not. But just for SAG: More customers. “‘We’re hearing that people are paying attention to us,’ says Mark LaNeve, GM’s head of North American sales and marketing. ‘It’s a great opportunity.'” Yup, it’s Marketing Mark up on that cross with Rick. Dealers hoping for salvation would be best advised to look elsewhere. To wit: this, under the helpful topic “More coastal support.”

“We suffer on the perceptual gap because a lot of the media is on the coasts, and we don’t do as well in those markets,” LaNeve says. “So if we could start penetrating Washington D.C., New York, L.A. with cars, that’s going to help with the perceptual gap. The key influencers are going to pick up on the fact that we’re introducing great products.”

That’s at least in part why Wagoner is happy another new customer introduced himself recently. A New York banker told Wagoner he’d traded in his Lexus for a Buick Enclave.

“I gather heretofore there weren’t many Buicks or American cars in his neighborhood,” Wagoner says.

Adds LaNeve, “If you can put one Buick into a Lexus neighborhood, that’s worth every ad I run in a whole year.”

Or not.

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • Ttilley Ttilley on Feb 12, 2009
    Adds LaNeve, “If you can put one Buick into a Lexus neighborhood, that’s worth every ad I run in a whole year.” I live on the Left Coast. If I buy a Buick, will LaNeve pay me his entire annual advertising budget? After all, it's worth it.
  • Jerry weber Jerry weber on Feb 13, 2009

    It is ironic that GM's spokesman would complain about the left and west coasts of the US for having bad media. They also have most of the population and wealth in the Country. As long as GM is going to have an un-countable plethora of badge engineered models, they will keep sliding deeper into oblivion. It is easy for me to see that each of their foreign competitors have strong niches in all of the categories GM is represented in. So let's say large sedans, they go against Avalon and Lexus (now add genesis). In small cars they go against honda and toyota. In sporty cars it might be Audi, BMW. etc. If GM would pick their battle and fight a few of these competitors in an area they are strong say Chevy trucks, malibu mid size and certainly large cars from caddy, they could finally put the up-dating and advertising that has been so diluted in recent times, on a few succesful brands. To make the same cars under different banners, is one of the prime reasons they are where they are today.

  • Slavuta Inflation creation act... 2 thoughts1, Are you saying Biden admin goes on the Trump's MAGA program?2, Protectionism rephrased: "Act incentivizes automakers to source materials from free-trade-compliant countries and build EVs in North America"Question: can non-free-trade country be a member of WTO?
  • EBFlex China can F right off.
  • MrIcky And tbh, this is why I don't mind a little subsidization of our battery industry. If the American or at least free trade companies don't get some sort of good start, they'll never be able to float long enough to become competitive.
  • SCE to AUX Does the WTO have any teeth? Seems like countries just flail it at each other like a soft rubber stick for internal political purposes.
  • Peter You know we’ve entered the age of self driving vehicles When KIAs go from being stolen to rolling away by themselves.
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