Wow. With all due respect do you really believe that? You have a company that is bleeding an unfathomable amount of red ink. They have these gas-guzzling SUVs when gas is at $3.00/gallon. They want people to go out and purchase them, regardless of the reason. If playing on insecurities or buying them because you just want to, they don't care. Nor should they. They're in the business of selling automobiles and trying to return to profitability (or at least slowing the losses). Their purpose is not to shape the moral fabric of our society.

 

I'll give it a shot, but remember what it says in my tagline..."I am not the official voice of GM..."

I'll take an indirect approach to answer your question. Ever seen a series of commercials starring a duck? Selling insurance? Bet you know the name of the company. The commercial series is farcical, with the only goal being to have the name etched in your memory.

Ever see a series of commercials where women are having what can only be described as an orgasmic experience because they use a particular brand of shampoo? Condescending to women? Probably. Memorable? Definitely. Does the company really want you to believe that you'll have an orgasmic experience from using their shampoo. I seriously doubt it.

So, what are the Hummer H3 ads doing? For the most poking fun at the perception that a lot of people (many here on this site) have of Hummer. You may recall the first of this series of commercials featured a group of extremely tall people gathered around a drawing table trying to decide what the next Hummer should be. A normal sized mail room clerk comes in and says "Did ya ever think about making it smaller?" They ignore him. He leaves and walks by a woman twice his height. "Good morning Helen" and she returns his greeting. Then they cut to the H3 and call it the Hummer for the average sized person. There was another commercial that showed the H3 as the offspring of two hideous creatures and referred to it as "our little monster". If you watch the commercials that you have been describing in this thread and TRULY BELIEVE that they are anything but tongue-in-cheek sarcastic comedy, you are taking things waaaay too seriously.

Peace,

Martin

 

GM had an operating profit of 1.2 B this past quarter.

Hummer H3 fuel economy is better than Toyota 4Runner and Ford Escape
Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon fuel economy is better than Toyota Sequoia, Nissan Armada, Ford Expedition and even the Kia Sorrento (a much smaller vehicle with a V6 engine)

Not sure exactly what this means. Most auto companies go to great lengths to do market research and consumer needs / wants analysis to help them develop vehicles that consumers are willing to pay for. There is a certain group of consumers who want something along the lines of a Hummer H3, a Toyota 4Runner, a Nissan Xterra, a Jeep Cherokee. That's who these vehicles are targeted to and that's who the advertising is targeted at. My guess is that those buyers will see the humor in these ads in ways that those interested iin buying hybrids would not.

Typical big business behaviour. No surprise there. The turn-around efforts appear to be working along just fine, as noted by the over-performance to analysts projections for the 2nd quarter of 2006.

No consumer products company should have the role of SHAPING moral fabric, but should be involved in strengthening it. GM's philanthropic efforts are lengthy and very public.

Peace,

Martin

 

Are you talking about the V6 Escape?

 

WHOA. What Ford Escape are you talking about?
Here are the numbers straight from the EPA for 2006:

Ford Escape
4cyl Manual FWD = 24/29
4cyl Auto FWD = 22/26
6cyl Auto FWD = 20/24
4cyl Manual 4WD = 22/26
4cyl Auto 4WD = 21/24
6cyl Auto 4WD = 19/23

Hummer H3
5cyl Auto 4WD = 16/19
5cyl Manual 4WD = 16/20


I can only guess he meant to type EXPLORER (15/20 city/hwy V6 Auto 4wd)

 

With all due respect, Martin, it seems a little disingenuous for you to say that the marketers are just providing a product that a 'certain group of consumers' already want. The point of marketing is partly to create demand for a product that doesn't already exist- the demand COMES from somewhere, and it can be the marketing as often as not.

People don't just wake up in a vacuum and decide, hey, I need to drive a huge gas-guzzling tank to restore my sense of power and superiority or to take out my frustration on the world. If they did, GM wouldn't need these commercials. The ads are a very carefully planned evocation of a particular response that the manufacturer wants to elicit- the mental connection between a certain type of image or behavior and the sale of a particular product. Ads are the most premeditated of a whole range of cultural sources for these kinds of connections (ie: TV, movies, etc).

I think the thing that people are reacting to here is that these ads seem targeted at a particular image that is intended to be agressive, offensive, selfish, even violent. (unsurprising when you consider that the product in question has many military connotations). Intentionally trying to tap into or encourage these aspects of people's personalities or their larger cultural values for commercial gain is disturbing. Why? Because our soldiers are dying every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. It shouldn't be a shock that evoking militarism, aggression, retaliation, etc. bothers people.

Sure, a lot of people went out and bought Reeses Pieces after seeing ET, but they didn't do it because they thought they were aliens, and anyway, the alien image in question was benign and cute. Yes, the dippy Old Navy ads irritate me every time, but I remember them (so negative images can still be effective advertising) and yes, there have always been companies that play on puns, rhymes, alliteration or a million other memory tricks to get people to remember their products. Evoking pleasure with good-smelling shampoo isn't a huge stretch, and it isn't a negative thing to conjure, either.

This isn't the same thing. This is problematic in the way that cigarette ads with cartoons were a problem-- because of what that image says about the people who are invoking it and the people who are targeted by it. In that case, it was that kids would be targeted by ads for a product that was illegal for them. This time it's more about building aggression or violent attitudes in people, especially during a time when we've got enough of that to go around, thank you very much. Feel free to disagree, but that's how I see it.

 

Oh, and speaking as a woman, I didn't feel that it was at all condescending to have ads with images of women being pampered with beauty products that THEY enjoy while clueless men stood around wondering what was happening (or feeling jealous, left out, inadequate- there were a whole series of ads with different male reactions). If anything, the message was that women didn't need men for that, which most women probably found to be more empowering than condescending. The woman on the playground, however, was in an uncomfortable situation and reacted in a foolish and insipid way, which I did find somewhat demeaning, especially couched in the language used in the ad.

 

He also claimed recently that 90% of Chevrolet's get over 30 mpg. He says he is currently posting from a beach on vacation sipping umbrella drinks, so I'll cut him some slack.

 

Yes I do my friend. Oh, I do !

In my view, smarter and successful companies (at least) "try NOT to look like" they are guided by the short term profitering. As a result they "appear" to choose a higher moral ground. "Looking green" and "appearing" to behave that way is what I would expect an auto company to do - especially if they hope to have a long term future. Anything else is simply promoting an image that the company will later regret.

In my own company I sometimes make choices that cost me more in the short run. I often try to convince myself that it is the best thing - it is very hard. And sure enough, in the long run for both myself and my employees, we reap the rewards in more ways than one. Even today, a good reputation and a track record of honest/caring business practices is worth a great deal.

When the advertising execs at GM promote a product like "Hummers" they are inevitably adopting a lower moral ground which only helps paint GM further as an environmentally irresponsible company. As some have said, this is very similar to ads the cigarette industry used to run.

Cheers;


MSantos

 

MSantos,

GM is a huge corporation with many different products. You have to sell each of them based on their targeted audience. While trying to sell a hybrid I could see appealing to a person's morals and ethics; touting the higher fuel economy and lower emissions. A picture of dad driving, picturing a cleaner future for his son sleeping in the car seat (rearwood faciing in the center rear position of course).

I doubt there is anyone purchasing a Hummer, even a lowly H3, that is doing it for any kind of altruistic reasons. They've determined the best way to sell these beasts is to appeal to people's testosterone, even the women. (Insert Tim Allen giving the male grunt at this time - aarrr, aarrr, aarrr). I'm not sure how you could sell a Hummer by taking the moral high road. Perhaps sell the H3 by showing how much more fuel efficient it is than the original Hummer?

Thanks for listening,
Marc