GM continues to be plagued by lack of brand differentiation

Once the predominate auto maker for the world, GM has seen its fortunes dissipate over the past decade dramatically.

To some degree the loses were due to a sluggish, ultra-conservative, lack of innovation infrastructure combined with better, more cost efficient and relevant products from overseas competitors.

Additionally, and where GM could have made a difference, the parent company's brands became more similar than dissimilar creating internal competition that further eroded market share.

When I was a kid, GM produced branded marques that meant something. Cadillac was the premier brand followed by Oldsmobile, Buick, Pontiac and Chevy. We "all" knew where the brands stood in terms of consumers socio-economic status.

Cadillac remains the premier brand that was nearly dead but has rebounded with its Escalade SUV line and sportier sedans.

Oldsmobile bit the dust as it was never able to lose its "my father's car" positioning for younger generations.

Buick was on the verge of being eliminated for excessively boring, ugly, irrelevant products but has obtained a brief reprieve with its mid-luxury cross-over Enclave SUV, (Tiger Woods wouldn't drive a Buick if it didn't come with 20 Million dollars!) and promises of other interesting new cars.

Pontiac once known as the sports car (performance) division has produced nothing but loser marques recently even with millions in free publicity from Oprah. A couple of years ago it reintroduced the GTO in what I thought was a sleek sexy package but had few takers because the car was underpowered, did not handle as expected and received very little marketing support.

And then there is Chevrolet. The entry level GM brand that in my opinion offered some of the poorest quality cars in the fleet but was quite successful with that positioning.....likely because the prices and expectations were low....now reasserting itself with a Honda Accord beater the new Malibu.....(the Corvette is a specialty car and in my opinion is in a separate category from the rest of the Chevy brand).

Saturn was introduced as the anti-GM GM product and had tremendous success for taking that positioning. As the brand went "upmarket" and improved quality it became more like GM's other brands, changed its unique positioning from experience to product styling and benefits and lost its way and is suffering accordingly. Today, it is just another GM brand without a clear identity and losing loyalists hourly.

GMC, the GM truck division, came to life with demand for SUVs especially now with the Acadia, a smartly designed cross-over that is winning strong reviews and customers despite a downturn in the SUV market.

The simple issue is that there are too many name-plates within the brands these days and that many of these marques are just recovered sheet metal from brand to brand. Economies of scale but at what cost to marketshare, brand dominance and consumer relevance?

For example Saturn's Outlook is a GMC Acadia which will become the Chevy Traverse in just a few weeks. These products will cannibalize each other rather than building GM marketshare.  Pontiac products get virtually no marketing support so it "feels" like that brand is dead. Other than the Buick Enclave you wouldn't really know there were other marques under the Buick name. Thus, we are left with Chevy and Cadillac. The bottom and the top, respectively.

Can GM survive with this kind of branding? "Big" Brands that only seem to offer one or two models due to lack of good product and marketing dollars? Unlikely unless it further eliminates marques and even another brand like Pontiac and consolidates into a much smaller car company. Not sure it can easily do this with its union contracts and still lumbering infrastructure. It has to do something soon.

At a minimum creating meaningful brands and marques with demonstrable differences from the best products available now and in the future would help tremendously. That's a long term goal that will become shorter the sooner they start going for it.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli