GM and Ford: Different Roads to Washington

By / December 3, 2008 /

From Guest Editor, Jeremy Greenfield

Big news this week in the ad industry is that GM plans to attempt to slash its $3.2 billion advertising budget to only $2.6 billion by 2012 if the government can come through with some $12 billion in bridge loans within the next year. Let me summarize this piece of news this way:

Dear Gov,

If you give us money to help us avoid bankruptcy, we’ll promise to flush 20% less advertising money down the toilet.

Love,
GM

What has GM been doing for the past quarter century with its advertising dollars? Just that: Flushed them down the crapper. For 20 years, GM has lost market share, and for 20 years, it has increased advertising spending. Insanity. Literally.

Okay, so nobody wants to hear the sucking sound that $600 million dollars going away makes. But let’s get our heads out of our colons for a second and break it down. Who got that $600 mill? Crappy agencies that produce car commercials, the worst kind of commercials known to man. Media buyers (parasites all), who could be replaced by teenage monkeys and nobody would notice. And broadcast television stations, stations so awesome that nobody is willing to pay for them.

In fact, I would argue that GM’s budget cuts represent an opportunity for the ad industry. GM still needs to support its brands and its new product launches with marketing. But it can’t be big budget TV ads and expensive media buys anymore. So it has to be the stuff of creativity. The storytelling and interactive experiences that audiences are craving these days, experiences they are not getting from Hollywood. And, let’s be honest, before the past 20 years of failure, GM was a model of success and is, therefore, a company with a great story and a rich history. We’ve got to be able, as an industry, to help them make something of that.

Look at what Ford has already started doing. The company launched TheFordStory.com, a site that hosts information about Ford’s plan for the future. It talks to its audience in plain, non-advertising-y language (save for CEO Alan Mulally in a featured YouTube video; he says “going forward” practically at the end of every sentence). Mulally argues that the company understands that it needs to go in new directions and that it will do so; I believe him here. What helps is that he’ll be driving to D.C. for the next round of hearings on the auto bailout, apparently taking to heart round criticism for flying in a private, corporate jet to Washington. That’s what we call “walking the walk.”

But, will this unforeseen, surprisingly brilliant stroke of marketing save Ford?

Hell no. Fact is that no amount of marketing (or marketing cutbacks) will save Detroit from its fate. Arcane dealer-franchise/automaker laws, spiraling pension and healthcare costs, a tenured workforce that is great at building the cars of the ‘90s, and a bitter consumer base are all problems that are just too big to be solved by taglines and hero shots. But you know what would solve all these problems? Cars that people actually want to drive. Great products. And, in the post-advertising age, a great product is the best marketing you can have. It all starts there. Just look at Google.

Jeremy Greenfield is editor of Post Advertising (go check it out) and a contributor to AdFreak, Adweek’s blog.