GM Tries "All-In" Marketing Plan: 60-Day Guarantee - Direct Challenge to Competition

If you've seen General Motors new chairman on TV ads lately touting the automaker's products, you're not seeing things. As part of a multi-tiered marketing blitz, GM is using its new chairman, Ed Whitacre,
as its front man to tout its products.

Whitacre, installed two months ago by the Treasury Department after GM opted for federal bailout money, was the chairman of AT&T. He is out there, a la Lee Iaccoca, head of Chrysler, who was that automaker's point man in a series of ads in the late 1970s and early 1980s that pointed out Chrysler's quality and reliability.

Lee Iaccoca Was Chrysler's Point Guy

While Iaccoca's stint as Chrysler's point guy lasted a good long time, Whitacre is only slated to be there for a relatively short time. He is one- third of a strategy that includes divisional ads by Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC, the core divisions of GM. Those ads will tout GM quality and challenge the competition: "May the Best Car Win." The ads will compare such things as economy, quality, price and even warranty to show consumers that GM products are a match for Japanese or European imports.

Whitacre's part of the project is to stress that GM's quality and reliability is every bit as good as the competition. Whitacre measures the quality and reliability against imports such as Honda or Toyota and asks consumers to dare to compare GM's products to the competition, according to Businessweek.

For the General, the "dare to compare" message, its just-implemented 60-day moneyback guarantee program and its "May The Best Car Win" promotion are keys to the future. GM is trying to bring back a generation of buyers who have been schooled in the idea that "import equals good; domestic equals domestic." It is really no joke for the automotive giant, either, as Toyota passed GM into the number one sales spot domestically this year, pushing GM to number two. And, while the percentages weren't great it was still a wakeup call to Detroit.

In the 1970s, GM had about 30 percent of the market. The automaker saw its share slip gradually through the 1970s and 80s as more imported makes came into this market and their quality surpassed the domestic segment by far.

Since about 1988, though, that image has really turned around as the domestics have taken a page or two from the import play books and have learned how to build in quality. It's just that now consumers have to be convinced.

This circumstance called for a bold strategy, and so GM put together a strategy that, for want of a better word, is actually a triangle or tripod, each piece depends on and backs up the other parts.

People Believe "Plain-Speaking Texan"

Whitacre, a "plain-speaking Texan," told Businessweek, quoted by msn.com, noted that "When they asked me to take the job, I too had my doubts." He noted that now that he has met the men and women of GM and has seen their products that "I believe these are some of the best cars and trucks in the world."

Businessweek noted that people found Whitacre very believable. "GM asked Whitacre to appear," the publication noted, "in the ads because he is an outsider. He also speaks with a Texas drawl and walks with a slight limp."

Bob Lutz, vice chair, told Businessweek that "Whitacre has the look of an aging cowboy. When GM showed the ads to consumers in prescreening events, viewers said they trusted Whitacre. 'People said he sounds very sincere,' Lutz says. 'Central casting could not have done better.'

Sources: Businessweek.com, msn.com, author's experience as 30-plus-year autowriter