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Thoughts while washing my 9-3 this evening:
In the early 90’s when GM was virtually hemorrhaging red ink, the board of directors, led by John Smale, then Chairman Emeritus of Procter & Gamble, initiated a sweeping board room coup that resulted in the ouster of Bob Stempel and a host of other executives. In the reorganization that followed, Smale ensured that GM embarked upon a new marketing approach centered on “brand management”, in which individual car nameplates (Cavalier, Regal, etc.) and division names were managed like any other consumer product. Brand managers were assigned to cars, just asProcter & Gamble always has for soap and toothpaste. In fact, during the mid-ninties most of these new brand managers were recruited from consumer products companies.
The outcome of this approach has been disastrous. GM has seen their market share steadily decline, in spite of the ever finer differentiations the marketing folks have developed to justify the continuation of numerous overlapping nameplates. Platform sharing, which in theory should be invisible to the consumer, has (under brand managment) instead resulted in boring cars that don’t appeal to customer senses of performance, value, and quality. The best example of this most recently is the Aztec. It’s butt ugly, of course, but more importantly GM chose to equip it with the same 3.4L pushrod V-6 found in the Pontiac Montana and Chevy Venture, and with much of the same handling characteristics found in these vans. The brand managers were sure that they could craft an “image” that would sell these “edgy” vehicle regardless of performance. To date, GM has sold less than half the number estimated.
Back to Saab. The platform sharing approach will manifest itself in the next generation 9-3, which will share underpinnings with the Chevy Malibu and Pontiac Grand Am, to name a few. Again, in theory this should be transparent to the customer, as floor pans and other basic “body-in-white” components shouldn’t matter if powertrains, suspensions, and interiors are markedly different. But look at GM’s track record. Perhaps the next generation Saabs will be all image, compliments of GM’s brand management team (fresh from selling boxed cereal), with none of the performance and uniqueness that have characterized Saabs over the years. The fact that GM has considered building a Saab SUV on the same platform with the Aztec and Buick Rendezvous should speak volumes about their approach to vehicle nameplates and heritage. I hope I’m wrong, but 10 years of GM brand management-driven vehicle development bodes poorly for the future of Saab.
, Thu, 19 Jul 2001 20:49:02
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