GM to do PR right
Congratulations, Bob Lutz. You had the right idea on GM.
Most Americans think GM and Chrysler are still bankrupt. General Motors is running a series of ads to show that it isn’t, and that it still has a future.
A huge number of Americans still seem to think that Chrysler is owned by the government or Fiat, or both (that is, depending on their mood, they say Chrysler is owned by the government, or they say it’s owned by Fiat.) Most of the rest think it’s directly owned by the UAW.
We’re not going to get into the problems with our news media and educational institutions, or the merits of teaching calculus instead of research methods, or of teaching about dates, names, and empty events, some of which were made up (which is sometimes referred to as “high school history”), instead of logic and reason. The problem here is mainly Chrysler’s fault — because they never managed the public and pundit reactions to their actions.
Many still believe Obama ordered Chrysler to close dealers due to their political leanings. Many still believe Chrysler had no justification for closing dealers. The company did release their rationale shortly after the firestorm began, but there would not have been one had they done what GM did — immediately released their rationale, and provided an appeals process in case the dealer relations people were not, shall we say, perfectly unbiased. Or in case they made a mistake. Daimler culture will take a long time to erase (especially since the arrogance of Daimler seems to be matched by the arrogance of Sergio — though at least the latter has something to be arrogant about. Something he didn’t make up.)
General Motors is not just getting its message out, it’s doing it across a variety of media. You will find lots of GM ads on Allpar, because they’re targeting all car buyers. You won’t find ANY Chrysler ads on Allpar. That’s their choice, not ours.
Ford has made an amazing number of sales based on their whisper campaign that GM and Chrysler are going away. GM is fighting that, and I think they’ll be very effective in fighting it.
Unfortunately, due to the weakness of Chrysler’s own leaders, the average American will still think that Chrysler is owned by Fiat, not honoring warranties, and is still bankrupt. That’s pretty sad, especially since there’s no reason for it.
Where Chrysler is screwing the pooch, is where they’ve always screwed it: PR. As you mentioned, GM is advertising on ***ALLPAR*** fercryinoutloud! Advertising on a Mopar-centric site? The balls that takes! Meanwhile, on Chrysler’s side… *crickets chirping*
I happen to know some incredibly talented people who work at Chrysler’s marketing & PR department, and have for years — and while I can’t deny the talent pool that exists there, I have to wonder, “what the hell are they doing?”
Because in the US market – the only market that really means anything to Chrysler – they’re not doing much.
It is getting hard to be patient. They’ve really got to get on the ball here – they’ve only got one shot to get this right or it’ hasta la bye bye.
Rich got a point there. We’re at the point where we wish Marchionne get a spectacular trick to get the media speechless.
On a off-topic note, it’s too bad then Fiat couldn’t get their hands on Opel (Magna and the Russian financial group Sherbank got 55% of Opel). Because some of their future platforms would had been perfect for future Dodge and Chrysler models. Any plans to do a rant on the Weblog rant about it?
Little correction, maybe the Opel saga isn’t probably over yet from what I saw on Autoblog http://www.autoblog.com/2009/09/13/you-didnt-think-the-battle-for-opel-was-over-did-you-belgium
I think Opel would be just too much. Chrysler will have more power without Opel…
Chrysler NEVER seemed to understand marketing, going back to the late 1940’s. If it, as a Corporation, had managed that facet of their operations, I would suggest that perhaps DeSoto would have lasted longer than it did, and Chrysler’s Newport, it’s own sister division, would not have cut so deeply into the DeSoto niche. When the whiz bang 1957 models came out, the ads running calling that “suddenly it’s 1960!” That run afoul of the Feds and had to be pulled. Whether it was relevant or not to the cars is dubious anyway. Had they any sense like the founder, Walter P., they would have shot right to the point. Look how he handled the Maxwell situation when he ended up with a real lump of hundreds of Maxwell cars with bad rear axles. He changed the axles, called them the “good” Maxwell and sold them all off at a nice profit! Now, you have to ask, what happened to that sort of mental acumen, from then to now?
I was always wrankled by the marketing efforts. 1957 again. DeSoto, the 345 V-8 Hemi engine put out a STANDARD 345 horsepower. Yet, there was Chevrolet screaming from the roof tops that their new ‘57 283 Fuel Injection achieved the first one horsepower per one cubic inch. Did it? Not really. That particular 283 cost over $500.00 above and beyond standard. While the DeSoto had it as a readily available engine, standard in certain models. Marketing never made an attempt to silence the Chevrolet ads. If you want to get into it, why didn’t Chrysler market their 1956 Chrysler 354 Hemi as being the “first” to achieve one horse per cubic inch, since the optional package on the 300 put out an honest 355 horsepower!
Right from the start, the 1957 models were warranty nightmares. But…… to MoPar’s credit, the engineers went immediately to work to correct the deficiencies that engineering had not had the time to fix. The 1958 models were far better, and the 1959 models were nearly paragons of virtue compared to the 57 models. Did Chrysler try to correct the impressions created by the poorer quality 57 models? Big fat no! But, Ford and GM also had problems with their 57 offerings. When was the last time you say a 57 Ford running around? The only reason you see so many 57 Chevrolets is that there is tremendous collector interest, and they built them by the millions!
The time to put forth the best possible image for the company is right now. Does Fiat truly own Chrysler or is it like 30% of it? Where does the bankruptcy stand? Who knows? Well, yes, we know, but most of us are not running out to buy new Chrysler cars, at least not right this minute. Chrysler needs to get people in their show rooms, and do it now. Marketing flounders, so does the company.
Many people do indeed think Chrysler is going away. Whatever situation they are in right now its their own fault. They had lots of opportunity to address any or all of their positions or decisions and they just left it for dead. With so many car companies out there to choose from today, I don’t see any reason through advertising or even plain old logic why anyone would choose to buy a car from them. I am due for a new vehicle next year, and although I am a Mopar fanatic, I may have to look elswhere because, from lack of advertising, reports, or even corporate news, I think this company is dead. Do they even have any new vehicles comming out? Who knows? This is not the way to gain customers. In my opinion, there is probably a dozen people who post on this website who could run the company better. I guess they don’t want to put adverts on this site thinking that anyone here is buying a Chrysler product any way. If I had any control at Chrysler I would make sure sites like this at least got any news or announcements first. Whatever is going on over there it sure is a big helping of not good. To be honest, I think anybody they had there that were good already left the company, and now they are left with no one who can operate it. The first thing you would want to spend your money on is advertising. It seems like all empolyees are under a gag order, they won’t even explain their decisions/actions or answer questions.
Not Good.
As so often happens, Curtis, I’m 100% with you and I appreciate your historical perspective, which sure is to the point. I recall with the Neon, the advertising rarely pointed out that it would beat the vaunted Civic – straight line or cornering – or that while Civic had 125 hp and 100 lb-ft torque in its priciest model, Neon had 132/129 standard… across the board! Or the current Ram – Ford got a lot of credit for raising their F150 gas mileage but Ram still apparently beats it. Consistently Chrysler has let its competitors have credit while their own advantages were ignored.
Hemi Head – thanks. And yes, I fully agree. I’ve been amazed that GM, of all people, proactively offered me an interview back when the SSR was still “soon to come.” But never Chrysler.
I used to get press books mailed to me when I wrote for Army-Navy Store and Outdoors Merchandiser (ANSOM) but not now.
As a much younger wrench-turner in the ’60s I would often hear people decry the unreliability of Chrysler products because, “as everyone knows,” they wouldn’t start when they got wet. Apparently right after the war (that would be WWII to you younger folks), Chrysler shipped a number of cars in ‘46 without spark plugs boots because there was a rubber shortage immediately following the end of the war. Oddly, when I looked down the list of cars that we hooked or the ones we worked on in the shop, I could not find one example of a customer complaining of a Mopar that wouldn’t start because of a wet ignition.
Upon hearing this same refrain one sultry afternoon, I bet my ex-fatherlaw that my then ‘65 Dodge Coronet 440 would start fully wet and he could control the garden hose. My only demand was that I be permitted to do the same thing to his brand new ‘68 Buick. He took great pleasure in assuring everything under the hood got wet and it probably cost him 100 gallons of water. That polyhead 318 started right up and never burped once. His Buick on the other hand, stood motionless for several hours. A smart person would never have bet that a distributor cap with a little sliding door in it would protect against moisture better than a solid cap!
To Chrysler’s credit, I remember in ‘69 that a TV ad ran with Arthur Godfrey (announcing the then new electronic ignition) that showed a fire engine pouring a high pressure stream into the open engine bay of a Plymouth Satellite. After a few minutes the motor was cranked and the engine started instantly. That was a good piece of advertising, in my opinion.
Why Chrysler doesn’t toot its horn today I can’t explain, or fathom. Right now the 2009 RAM is the only LD pickup using a fully boxed frame with 85,000 PSI steel. I’d be telling people about that.
One thing that hasn’t been discussed is the mandate a while back to cut advertising. Maybe Chrysler markettg wants to do a better job of getting the message out, but are constrained with a lack of advertising funds.
The ad fund constraints have been lifted AFAIK. In any case, they really have no excuse in that line, because Ford, GM, etc. have effectively used Google content ads (e.g. the ones you see on Allpar) to get the word out at relatively low cost.
People self-affirm their ideas. To iterate, if someone doesn’t care for Chrysler, they’ll easily say “Chrysler is going bye-bye”. Furthermore, Chrysler knows it’s loyal customers don’t need to hear about every little advantage it pulls out, maybe because they think they’ll sound desperate. I often do feel automakers sound desperate, like “GM has 10 cars that get 30 MPG”. To me that statement means nothing other than literally they have 10 cars that get 30 MPG, but really what is GM doing? It is asserting that it is a car company that cares about the environment and your wallet. Chrysler doesn’t give that message in any way, direct or indirectly. I’m disturbed at how unwilling Americans are at driving manual transmission vehicles. As a nation, we’d literally save hundreds of millions of dollars in fuel in a year. Furthermore, if we as a nation are too be so environmentally conscience, and we all want vehicles with good fuel economy, where is the push for small, common-rail direct-injection diesels? I really feel they are the most viable energy solution for the next decade. Europe is completely diesel-dominated, whereas we are completely gasonline-dominated — I think it shows Americans ignorance for alternative solutions that are very well viable. Virtually every gas station has at least one diesel pump, so it’s doesn’t have the problem that Hydrogen fuel cells incur as far as refueling. My point is Chrysler needs to find a new path it can find, rather than following the paths of others and basically remaining in the shadow of GM and Ford like it always has, and set the pace. Even if something doesn’t pan out and they have to drop it, they can try their hardest to break even, in which case basically there’s no staggering loss, and they’ll gain credibility for a novel technology/product. People need to get their heads on straight! I’m no genius, but if I was running a business, I would try my darndest to succeed. I think most companies have people that just want to get paid a lot of money and don’t care much for the success of their company. How to fix that? More merit-based pay system, with higher company performance dishing out more money to effective employees and execs.
Oh, I don’t think people give a toss for gas mileage, in general, now. I think when prices go up again with the restarting of the economy, then Chrysler will be happy Fiat’s cars are there.
What I don’t understand is why 90% of the pundits believe people really care about gas mileage, especially when it doesn’t help Chrysler to have the best-mileage minivan or, AFAIK, full size pickup.
Likewise, I don’t get this whole line about “no desirable vehicles until 2011″ that gets parroted. The 2009 Ram is less than ONE YEAR OLD and it’s still the BEST pickup out there, though Ford’s inferior-mileage F-150 gets the headlines with its “20% more efficient than our last POS.” And that’s another example of Chrysler not getting any message across.
More to the point, the marketing has not really improved, as Dave shows with the Neon, from then to now. If FIAT is going to turn things around, it needs to start with places like we have right here. Granted, they are just jumping into the frying pan, and I reckon that there are plenty of things that need frying. But, when I see the new GM President delivering his message 5 or 6 times a night on various TV networks, I can only wonder where is Chrysler? Mr. Whitacre is a guy comes off as your average home spun salt of the earth easy going dude, happy with who he is, and darned proud of what his company is building! You can’t beat that sort of selling job. And notice he isn’t “selling” the cars. He is offering the “sizzle” which is really what makes sales. Good IS better! The RAM is probably a better pick up than the Chevy or the F-150. But ads don’t sell us that. They show a RAM being abused through the dirt, mud, and rough stuff, without any particular message except trying to “Sell” the truck, rather than good “sizzle” to get one. Somehow, sales have gone awry and marketing is probably responsible.
As much as I disliked Iaccoca, and his management style, he did know how to push the sizzle. When the new “K” cars came out, and they were priced and optioned way too high, he immediately cut costs, made some things “standard” and in general got the price down to a more palatable level. Even then, sales weren’t going as well as they had projected. So he made some commercials where he starred in them. He didn’t sell the cars, he sold the things ABOUT the cars, and lo and behold, they did start to move. More than one customer was heard to remark that “we are gonna buy one of these because Lee said they were good.” So it was and so it should be right now.
Re: Comments by Curtis & Dusty
The 1951 Chyrsler 331 Hemi had 180 HP, but Cadillac advertised their High Performance 331 with 160 HP. I remember my Ford & Chevy friends razzing about the noise made by our Starters with the reduction gear, but they seemed a mite too silent when in the winter my car would start so I could boost theirs.
Chrysler and their ad agencies seem to often to shy away from blowing their own horn, to their detriment.