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in Reverse!  Gus Peabody, General Motors v.p. in charge of marketing, is taken away by company security after using the term "Chevy" in a press conference. |
Kissing the name 'Chevy'
goodbye is a dopey move
of TheColumnists.com
Like anxious parents watching a backward 12-year-old learn to read, we were all heartened when it appeared that General Motors was beginning to climb out of its valley of stupidity.
The company’s top brass vowed that it would return to making cars that people wanted to buy. It emerged from bankruptcy saying it had learned its lesson. No more tepid cars because of decisions made by committee. The company would return to the innovation that made it an icon during the first half of the 20th Century.
But some observers of the auto industry remained doubtful that GM could really change. Complacency and insularity were in its DNA. This was the company, after all, that famously named a new model the Nova, then attempted to sell it in the Spanish-speaking world where “no va” means “doesn’t go.”
But--maybe, just maybe--could it be that GM was finally beginning to act as if something flowed in its corporate veins besides contempt, arrogance and 40-year-old technology?
Alas, the answer is now in. And while there is still cause for wisps of optimism, the company continues to make decisions that are so boneheaded you wonder how in the world the people running things got to where they are. They make the Three Stooges look like Warren Buffet.
The latest piece of corporate vaudeville is the move to get rid of the nickname “Chevy” for Chevrolet. “Chevy” is a term of affection, something GM is in sore need of at the moment. It has been around for more than 80 years. It is known worldwide. Like “Coke” its value as an icon of the brand is beyond price.
But on June 8, Alan Batey, Chevrolet’s vice president for sales and service, and Jim Campbell, v.p. for marketing, sent a memo that will go down in history as an example of just how spectacularly, go-for-the-fences dumb a corporation can be.
“We’d ask that whether you’re talking to a dealer, reviewing the dealer advertising, or speaking with friends and family, that you communicate our brand (not “refer to our brand)” as Chevrolet moving forward,” said the memo.
Business historians will spend decades pondering that memo. How could anyone in sales and marketing blithely dispense with something as valuable, beloved and well-known as the Chevy nickname?
The memo says the idea is to establish brand name consistency and refers to “Coke” as an example of consistency. The authors were apparently unaware that “Coke” is a nickname for Coca-Cola, just as “Chevy” is a nickname for Chevrolet.
Paul Worthington, an expert on branding, in effect told The New York Times that Chevrolet Moving Forward was really Chevrolet Moving Backward, bucking a trend toward more casual brand names. He said Federal Express has become FedEx, for example, and Radio Shack has become the Shack.
Klaus-Peter Martin, a GM spokesman, is adamant. “We’re going to use Chevrolet instead of Chevy going forward,” he said.
Well, going forward, the latest J. D. Power & Associates ranking of new-vehicle quality at 90 days of ownership ranks every one of GM’s vehicles as below the industry average. The average is 109 problems per 100 vehicles. Chevrolet Moving Forward and Cadillac each had 111; Buick, which GM has attempted to deploy as its Lexus-killer, had 114, (Lexus had 88) while GMC was way down there with 126.
Chevrolet Moving Forward has come up with
one great new model, the Malibu, and bills it as the car that
shows how GM now gets it. But it doesn’t get it.
Hard-to-believe examples of imbecilic design are still there.
I recently had occasion to rent a Cobalt, a Chevrolet Moving
Forward model. GM managed a spectacular feat of build-it-awkward
by placing the parking brake underneath the center console. To
use the brake, the driver must snake his or her arm around and
under the console.
Or you can shove the console back to reach the brake unimpeded.
No other automobile can make that claim except Chevrolet Moving
Forward.
Don’t these people ever drive the cars they come up with? If they do, what is their remedy for that kind of thoughtlessness? A shrug? It’s been said that GM’s green-eyeshade types forced the company to do so much cost-cutting that the Cobalt was fatally handicapped. The Corolla, its Toyota rival, sold three cars for every Cobalt sold. But by golly, GM sure trimmed costs.
GM once set the pace in Detroit. My first three cars were Chevrolets, and I loved every one of them. Much later, a disgracefully overpowered Camaro stole my heart. I think the company is rich in human resources, despite the clownishness among some of its top executives. But something began happening to GM about 40 years ago, and despite the best efforts of those trying to drain the swamp, there are still residues of stifling bureaucracy in GM’s nooks and crannies, along with devotees of the “Customers will take what we give them and like it” school of automobile design.
There are reports that young people are being brought in to take important positions in GM, and that the unimaginative green-eyeshade types that handicapped the company for decades are losing influence. Let’s hope so. Let’s hope the Chevy debacle and the reaction to it gives impetus to GM’s reform efforts. Moving forward.
©2010 by Charles M. McFadden. The McFadden caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted July 5, 2010.
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