BlueOx

In a nod toward recent perceived marketing blunders, GM forces head of marketing Joel Ewanick out. The guy who dropped Facebook ads, SuperBowl ads, and who made the Manchester United soccer team sponsorship deal for GM has been shown the door.

It sounds like they may still go ahead with some of his strategies but given the timing, one has to wonder how this will effect the C7 (and new Silverado) campaigns. Thoughts?

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...er-jersey-deal

Sorry if this is a repeat.

LS1LT1

Not sure but I don't think it will have much impact on the actual car itself at all, perhaps on some of it's marketing/advertising campaigns (or lack thereof) maybe?

CRABBYJ

Hey GM make me an offer as Marketing Chief. I'd do a remake of the "It's a Boy's Dream" commercial using a legal age ricer driver instead daydeaming of a C7 while driving his fart can car! Debute it at the Super Bowl!

I Bin Therbefor

IMHO, Corvette is in greater danger now, than ever before. From "Corvette from the Inside" - "the good folks in middle management at Chevrolet and at GM have never really understood how special the brand is. And, if they ever get their way - perhaps in a time of economic downturn - Corvette could still be threatened or at least might be watered down. And if that is done, the fanatic customer could be driven away and the brand would or could die." -Charlie Kenny- IMHO, if you add to that middle management group, the government appointed idoit now in charge and his flunkies - then you really have big danger. For those of you who say it can't happen, remember the Oldsmobile and Pontiac - great brands in their day. Someone in GM is bound to be saying, "why do we need the Corvette when Ford only needs the Mustang?" These folks are only good at cancelling/critizing not at creating/encouraging.

Rapid Fred

Perceptive post. While pretty much everybody who posts here is a Vette fanatic (just a matter of degree), I always think of the "confounding question." In this case it would be -- what would the impact on GM be if there were no Vette? Nobody can really answer that, but it is possible to conceive of analyses that might give GM a range of possible answers. If the answers range from "drop in the bucket" to "minor" then from a purely business standpoint I'd be the first to drop the brand/car. Book it, though, with all the development and retooling already spent and ready to be amortized over the next 5-10 years, the C7 is safe.

As to the new marketing chief, my bet they'll be long gone before the go-no go on the C8 is made.

BlueOx

I agree that Corvette could be at a crossroads but that has happened any number of times, with a lot of different GM executives from the early days to the present. Nothing new about that and it has little to do with any gov 'idoit'.

The perception damage to GM that would occur if they eliminated an icon like the Corvette would be severe.

Any brand in any company that doesn't sell to expectations is open to elimination. Exactly what 'expectations' are being placed on Corvette these days is open to interpretation. Special is fine but products and the people who design/make/sell them are mostly judged by sales figures, not by how special something is. These days, Cadillac is being positioned as the GM halo brand. We will just have to see if the C7 can retake that crown for Corvette.

LS1LT1

Ya know, I've never even considered a possible world where there was no longer a new Corvette offered by GM/Chevrolet, but when you look at that way it really could potentially happen just how you've described.
Hope not though.

zland

One continuing problem for GM is most of their cars lack character. Corvette is one of their few models that when seen, love it or hate it, everyone knows what it is. You would think by now GM would know many people buy a car on emotions. Most Americans cannot even visualize what a new impala looks like and may ask if it is still even made.

Jinx

Well, GM said they're staying with Commonwealth (the agency under Ewanick), so there's some continuity at least.

I doubt this impacts C7's coming out party in January. It might affect the quality of food served at the "first look" day they throw at Milford for the press, so there might still be some snarky derision of the interior quality from the old guard but the online press will just be thrilled to get a hot lap behind the wheel so I'm not too worried.

I worry about the Big Introductory Ad, though. Some bean counter is going to wonder why they should spend a few million on an image ad for a car that seems irrelevant post-recession. And that ad is literally the stuff dreams are made of.

Tommy D

YUP, GM really screwed up when it pulled "Its a Boys Dream"

jb_va2001

Distractions like this are seldom good in the near term, but huge companies like GM roll through stuff like this and it sounds like GM needed to make the change. Surprising, guys at this level seldom make rookie mistakes like Ewanick's negotiations with Manchester United. I suspect there is more to the story than we read in this article, maybe things happening outside the office.

I know we all like to fret about things on CF, but it could turn out to be a good thing for Corvette. This may be the first product launch for Ewanick's replacement and he/she will want it to go well. C7 engineering & styling are long done, much of the marketing activities are routine (meet motor press here, have test drives there, do auto shows, NCM event, prioritize loaner cars, meet general press...) or already being planned. Sounds like Ewanick's job is above the Corvette brand (ex: he was doing bow tie logos on jerseys in Europe, GM ads on FB), SB & FB decisions are reversible (assuming there is budget to do them, but I don't know that I buy an argument that success of C7 hinges on people seeing ads in the SB and on FB). Someone else is running Corvette specific marketing and the C7 launch, someone who likely loves Corvette, and they are still at GM.

Cheers,
JB

Dudeurgettnavette

Doesn't matter. I don't buy things based on ad's!

John T

I remember seeing an advertisement for a Ferrari. Pretty sure it was the only one I had ever seen. It had three photos- a bottle of wine, 308 Ferrari, and a beautiful woman. The caption read " Decisions, decisions " .

c54u

BlueOx

I'm not fretting about his departure...yet. I haven't been impressed with how Corvette marketing has been handled in the last few years but acknowledge that the economy/GM bankruptcy had a huge effect on it.

I do like what has been done with Cadillac XTS/ATS the last year or so, which was done under his reign. He (supposedly) was tasked with cutting the budget in half so it wasn't all his fault but he (supposedly) also didn't tell the powers some major details about ManU deal which, along with GM losing market share, may have been the straw.

I agree that the success or failure of the C7 doesn't hinge on SB or FB ads but they can use all the help they can get to improve sales. Hopefully the C7 will re-emerge as the halo car it has been in the past with appeal to an even bigger audience than it has had.

JoesC5

Darn, I was hoping it was Obama they were kicking out the door. He is their chief marketing head, and is really screwing things up.

Jp23rockstar

Instead of advertising of the super bowl, they should advertise during the world series in 2013. First it's just not one day and the c7 is actual in production by then. Plus you would save money. Leave the auto shows and magazines to advertising. The people that want to buy corvettes are car enthusiasts. They are the ones on the most part that read info about cars and purchase them.

jb_va2001

Corvette has a huge number of repeat buyers. Many/most (all?) of those already have a C6. Those buyers are sitting on their wallets waiting on the C7.

Few Americans care about ManU, many don't even know who they are. The silver lining in the ManU fiasco is that GM must see a future for Chevy in Europe and the international market. A future they were willing to invest in with a big $$$, high visibility sports deal. And that could lead to more international Corvette sales. FWIW, I was in BG for a Buyer's Tour last week and was pleased to 6 Corvettes being built around mine for international shipment. That is a good thing.

Cheers,
JB

69L79

NADA. The Vette basically sells it self............to us. If it looks good and performs better than the C6, which it will, I will be OK with my purchase. Overall, I think the days of 20K units sold per year are long gone. 15k to 20k sold C7s per year would be considered a success by GM going forward.

BlueOx

It would be interesting to know what GM's global Corvette sales expectations really are. Selling only to a consistently shrinking demographic that will buy with minor styling and performance improvements, while necessary, is not a recipe for future global sales growth.

If you are right that the days of 20k sales in the U.S. are over, they need to find more sales somewhere else.

It is easy to forget that GM, like Ford and Chrysler, is not an American company any longer. They are all multi-nationals. This is one of the main reasons why they need to compete in ALMS with euro cars. They have shown they are every bit as good a performance car as the euros. Now they must improve other perceived quality and drivability objections like the interiors and traction issues to clinch the deal.