GM seeks brand recognition with new ads

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), May 16, 1996 by Stuart Elliott N.Y. Times News Service

Who would have thought that advertising for General Motors Corp. would one day echo an anthem for hippies?

That improbable occurrence is a highlight of an ambitious campaign that seeks to burnish GM's corporate image as the automaker promotes individual car, truck and minivan models.

The campaign comes as the company overhauls sales strategies to try recapturing market share in North America.

Print advertisements that begin Monday, and television commercials that follow a week later, take a low-key, tongue-in-cheek tone that is refreshingly out of character for the staid company.

They tackle three tricky tasks: reinforcing loyalty among longtime customers, wooing buyers of competitive brands and winning back owners of GM mistakes like the Chevrolet Vega and Cadillac Cimarron.

"There's a bigger issue here than advertising," said Phillip Guarascio, vice president and general manager for marketing and advertising at the North American operations of GM in Warren, Mich. "We're looking at GM as a brand." The campaign is intended to complement a new brand-management system under which each model is promoted as a separate brand rather than part of a division like Pontiac or Oldsmobile.

"The goal is to weave it together so the whole is greater than the sum of the parts," Guarascio said.

The first phase of the campaign began in 1994 with employee testimonials. Research showed it "has connected with consumers," said Luana Floccuzio, advertising director for the North American operations of GM marketing and advertising, who joined Guarascio during an interview in New York.

Because the campaign initially succeeded in conveying "that GM was changing in a positive way," she added, it prompted phase two, about "how people and their vehicle needs are changing and how GM is being responsive by keeping up with -- if not ahead of -- them."

That thought is underscored by the campaign theme, "People in motion," which Guarascio said was intended to identify those joyful attributes linked to driving, like "freedom, mobility and independence," and claim them for GM.

It's the same tactic, he continued, as in ads proclaiming that "Nike means self-esteem, Eastman Kodak means memories, Folgers means the morning and McDonald's means food and fun."

The words "People in motion" appear in each ad on mock highway and traffic signs and signposts; they are even painted on a road surface.

Those who remember the 1960s might recall that phrase from the refrain of the 1967 tune San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) by Scott McKenzie.

Stephen Feinberg, executive vice president and creative director at the N.W. Ayer & Partners unit of Adcom Investors Inc. in New York, which is the corporate agency for GM, said that the recycling was a coincidence.

"We really tried to give this the customer perspective," Feinberg said of the campaign's second phase, to demonstrate "that we get it beyond the manufacturing of steel and plastic and glass."

So the campaign offers a driver's-eye perspective from childhood through old age. When "you arrive," the ads declare, you need "GM vehicles with Scotchguard seats." (Note to GM and Ayer: It's Scotchgard.)

When "you settle down," the ads say, there are cars like the Chevrolet Corvette "to get away." And when "your eyesight is not as good as your foresight" and "you turn the thermostat up and the volume down," there are Buicks and big trucks.

"There's a lot of recognition of GM as the umbrella brand for cradle to grave as the different divisions attract different age groups with different price points," said John Ruf, a partner at the New England Consulting Group in Westport, Conn., who follows the automotive industry.

"That's definitely GM's heritage, more so than any brand out there, so the campaign leverages that," he added.

"But I'm not sure it's a very compelling story."