In Case You Haven't Heard, GM is Reinventing Itself

"Half of GM's problems are public perception."

I have to agree with that, but ironically, I perceive GM as being more concerned about how they're perceived than how they get on with the job. Less marketing, more good cars please.

I like the ad. Instead of offering critiques on commercials maybe Ed should just stick to posting news stories. I am curious as to what kind of ad and website Ed thinks GM should've put up. Did he really think they were going to run ads saying "our company is on the verge of disappearing, please buy the competition". Get real. Better to keep the public informed and boost confidence in your viability than to worry about what snarky auto bloggers have to say.

Video removed by user.

You can still view it here: http://www.autoblog.com/2009/06/01/video-gm-explains-new-gm-in-new-commercial/#comments

GM needs no help pumping out condescending, superficially apologetic, "turn-the-corner" PR campaigns... they've been doing it since the '90s. Remember the "Road to Redemption" campaign back in 2003? It concluded thusly: "The road to redemption has no finish line. But it does have a corner. And it's fair to say we've turned it."

This is the same kind of insultingly simplistic rah-rah campaign GM has relied on for the last ten years—the "This is our country, this is our truck" and "An American Revolution" schmaltz.

Football! Flags! Hockey! Barn-raising! Ohhh lawdy, GM is BACK, I can feel it!!!

After seeing the Jon Stewart clip from an earlier post, I really enjoyed his comments on how silly it was to use imagery of public transportation in the hopes of winning over people worried about buying GM cars. Although personally, I think this ad was 100x better than those dumb "rally cap" commercials they kept running not too long ago.

And speaking of ads, I'm kind of surprised Ford hasn't been driving the point across that they haven't borrowed government money, aren't in bankruptcy and drove a Fusion hybrid over 1,000 miles on a tank of gas. Making a big fuss about those points are how you distance yourself from the competition.

Not sure why the used the public transportation images either. The rest of it was pretty good. This kind of advertising is necessary because too many people (even here) think this is a "going out of business" bankruptcy and not a reorganization bankruptcy.

Changing the corporate culture, mentality and philosophy of a 100+ year old company isnt going to be easy. That said, GM has a looooooooooong way to go.

Good commercial. Still, it might hurt sales, particularly for Pontiac and Saturn. There's a lot of people out there that still don't know they're going away.

Well it doesn't particular say those specific brands are going away... If they missed all the memos up to this point, maybe they won't notice those brands were missing from the ad. It could happen.

Great idea GM. Clearing up misconceptions about what is happening to the company is the right thing to do in a situation like this. With all the rumors swirling about their demise, someone can at least inject some true in the matter. I'm just worried that a lot of consumers are just going to either overlook the ads/website, or they're going to think GM is lying to them.

The government should really put out some high profile educational info on what exactly bankruptcy is and the usual results of it. Again, misconceptions by the public.

All in all, this is the type of marketing GM needs to keep doing for themselves. This thinking is what will make them strong again.

I just love the snarky commentary by the California-based Edmunds staff. Why don't you just be honest and tell us the truth: you would prefer that the US Domestic auto manufacturers just go out of business. They employ and are supported by people you don't relate to and can't understand. Why kick GM when they're down? I thought the ad explained their situation well and set the right tone.

Love the P.R and the . . . . that goes with it. But, the job still incomplete in my opinion. They forgot to chop two more.

iskch, I agree, it needs to be Chevy and Caddy only, but going from 8 to 4 in one fell swoop is pretty commendable too. Keeping Buick and GMC means they don't have to deal with a whole channel of dealers suing them. They want this reorganization to be as clean and quick as possible, so I'm sure the idea is to take what you can.

re: 1997montez34
I'm not an edmunds staff, but YES, I want GM to go out of business. As an auto enthusiast, I would hate to see Camaro, Corvette, etc disappear, but GM, in the process of going down the toilet took all the tax-payers and investors with them.

Yes, they employ people, but so do other manufacturers in US. Key difference is, other manufacturers aren't going bankrupt(except Chryco) and sh1tting all over their investor/creditors who (by number NOT amount invested) are largely people who had faith in the company to invest their retirement funds on.

Have you thought about how much tax-payer debt this "restructuring" is costing to average American? In the overall scheme of things, Auto workers make up just small, miniscule percentage among 300 million Americans. Just to save few tens of thousand jobs, ALL americans have to pay. how is this fair?