Topic: So many GM brands.....

[Thinking Out Loud]

Excerpt from the G&M this AM:

"GM's largest brands are Chevy, which accounted for 59 per cent of its U.S. sales last year, GMC at 13 per cent and Pontiac with 9.4 per cent. The other five brands account for less than 20 per cent and none has more than 7 per cent."

http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080708.wibgm08/BNStory/Business/home

Interesting statistic - even if it isn't Canadian - likely similar here.  Article goes on to state that rationalization of the product lines may not be the answer, either.

[wing]

Well Caddy need to stay, Buick IMO should go and move any good product from there to Caddy.  Saturn is turned around now (or it seems like it)....

[montrealvue]

I will never understand why GM is still using the multiple brand business model.  It worked in the 60's when there was only the big 3.  Times have changed and GM has not.  I am having a hard time sympathizing with GM now.  Why sell the same car with 3 or 4 different badges?  Hyundai/KIA and Honda/Acura are now having limited success doing it yet GM seems to think having duplicate vehicles like the Saturn Outlook, GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave and the Chevy Traverse will mean sales success.  GM needs to stop creating overhead and chop brands.  Namely, Pontiac, Hummer, GMC, Saab and Buick.  Keep Saturn as the Opel arm and run it as it should be, the niche European brand.  Chevy has always been the breadwinner and the other brands are a distraction.  Concentrate on the core brands (Chevy and Cadillac) and stop the "make work" projects.  Sales dictate it doesn't work anymore.

[Thinking Out Loud]

Wing - do you have any idea about the desireability that Buick has in the Chinese marketplace?  I believe they have 'different' Buicks - but what is the cache affiliated in the brand that resonates so well there?

Saab/Opel.  THERE is a microdealership combo! 

Anybody remember the Canada-only 'Passport' brands......

[Dante]

I think that Chevy, Caddy, Buick (because of China) should stay. The rest should go. If they decide to fight the Germans, I think they should use the Opel brand instead of Saturn. Saturn does not have any brand cache; I would even say the opposite. So Saturn should be killed and replaced with Opel.

[tenpenny]

It may have been in Monday's G&M that GM stated Chevy and Cadillac were considered the core brands.

When you look at it, I don't believe that there is anything sold as a GMC that isn't sold as something else.  So why keep it?  Most, if not all, of the other brands have some unique vehicles in their lineup.

[footlong58]

I've never understood GMC...  How much money, just alone in marketing materials, logos, letterheads, etc, would GM save just by getting rid of GMC...

But I guess money saved still isn't profit... Stealing from Peter to pay Paul...

[gta_driver]

The problem with dropping brands is twofold.

(1.) Historically when you drop brands you lose customers and often these customers are lost for good never returning. That's why automakers are so reluctant to drop brands, they would rather sell them off or hold on to them since they boost the bottom line on market share and profitability(even if its meagre). There is quantitative evidence of this. I know at GM, they track former customer buying habits through third party auto research companies. When Chrysler dropped Plymouth in Canada, they where hoping buyers would go to either Chrysler or Dodge, instead most buyers left the automaker entirely, Many ended up at Ford or GM. When Oldsmobile was dropped in North America, it was hoped that most buyers would move to Buick, instead most of them left the GM brand family entirely. A lot of them eventually ended up at the doorsteps of Asian based automakers. The expereince with Mercury being dropped in Canada by Ford is very similiar.

(2.) Because of franchise laws you have to basically pay off dealers when you close brands. GM currently doesn't have spare cash hanging around to buy off dealers.

[inco]

Very good points GTA and it's something I'm sure GM is very concerned about.
Don't drop brands - drop models would be my thoughts. Rather than duplicate brands to keep dealers happy, start thinking survival and give them cars that are popular.

Sell brands at price points - Chevy up to say $30 grand, Pontiac for the next bracket up, then Buick and then Cadillac and give dealers all four ending current set ups. Let them sell them all.

Clean house and remove overlaps. This might cause a problem for the Chevy Corvette, but dropping the Chevy name wouldn't destroy anything if it was just sold as Corvette would it? And do we need Chevy and GMC trucks? No, settle on just one - and GMC I think would work best.


 

[wing]

They can't drop chevy it is their largest seller with 59%....

[Thinking Out Loud]

Even if the REALLY focused on vehicles within segments, have a couple of Pontiac "performance" division vehicles (oh - wait - they're all Chevys), Chevrolet being your mass market passenger division, etc. 

No Pontiac G5, but the Cobalt makes sense - for example.  And if GMC is their TRUCK division, dump the Chevrolet clone and give the F150 a real run....

[TopGun]

I like inco's idea on dropping models...but what do you do with Saturn?  Drop the Aura AND the Outlook?

August's MotorTrend that states "...the midsize Aura and crossover Outlook floundering in the market even as siblings like the Chevy Malibu and the Buick Enclave/GMC Acadia succeed..."?

That's perhaps where his concept of creating "GM stores" in their dealerships makes for good sense...and perhaps even a transition to eliminating the brands themselves if it can be done under one roof.

[safristi]

send the obtuse buyers who don't know the non existant difference between GM brands to GITMO..................err GMOTO.....wherever................

[Mitlov]

Funny this came up.  On another forum, we just discussed how maybe GM should consolidate to two brands--Chevy and Cadillac.  It works for Nissan/Infiniti, Honda/Acura, and Toyota/Lexus, no?  Here's what I'd put under each brand.  And I'd have them all made in North America, even those based on Opel designs, to save money.  Building a mass-market car in Europe and then importing it has become economic suicide with the strong Euro.

CHEVROLET:

CARS:

*  Yet-to-be-named subcompact, based on the Opel Corsa.
*  New-generation Cobalt.  Basically an Astra built in the USA, available with three, four, or five doors.  Include a Cobalt SS with the 260hp turbo four, of course.
*  Malibu.  Unchanged.
*  Lucerne.  Unchanged from the Buick.  Large, soft, FWD sedans still sell quite well where I live.
*  Impala.  Pontiac G8, rebadged as a Chevy.
*  Camaro.
*  Corvette.
*  Solstice.  I'm not even sure they should keep the current model.  Sales tanked after the first year, and it's got some serious flaws in the design (no cargo with the roof down, for example).  Maybe keep the idea of an entry-level roadster, but go back to the drawing board.  Use a slightly-shrunken C6 Corvette platform when the C7 Corvette comes out, with more mainstream materials than a C6 Corvette to keep costs down, and a turbo four engine?  Available in coupe and convertible form.

TRUCKS:

*  Silverado.  Essentially unchanged.
*  A yet-to-be-named unibody pickup based on the Lambda platform.  As much as people bash the Ridgeline online, they sell like wildfire even in import-hostile Medford, and they make a ton of sense for "personal-use" pickups (hauling motorcycles, ATVs, and materials for do-it-yourself home-fix-it projects). 
*  Kill the Colorado and give up on the compact body-on-frame pickup market.  I think it's been a sales disaster (but I don't have hard numbers), and I think a stripped Silverado work truck and a Lambda unibody pickup would absorb most people who did buy Colorados.

SUVs/CUVs:

*  New-generation HHR.  Take an Opel Zafira compact MPV and give it retro American lines.  Optional AWD.  This will replace both the HHR and mainstream compact CUVs like the Vue and Equinox.
*  Traverse.  The current Lambda CUV.
*  Suburban.  I suspect these will keep selling, though in smaller numbers. 

CADILLAC:

*  ATS:  Compact four-door coupe with the 260hp turbo four or a 400ish-hp small block.  Gateway drug to Cadillac.
*  CTS:  Unchanged.  The second-generation is pretty stellar as is.
*  STS:  New generation, built with the love that the CTS got.  Available in short and long wheelbase (like they do in China).  The LWB version will eclipse the DTS.
*  Yet-to-be-named compact crossover.  Looks like the Provoq concept, uses the platform of the new Vue.
*  Yet-to-be-named large crossover.  Lambda platform.  It would meet the market demand currently filled by the Enclave.
*  XLR:  New generation, built with the love that the CTS got.
*  Escalade:  Because Fitty doesn't care about gas prices.

[dr_spock]

They dropped Oldsmobile.  It shouldn't be too hard to drop others.   They could move Buick to a China only brand and build them there cheaply. 

[ArticSteve]

(2.) Because of franchise laws you have to basically pay off dealers when you close brands. GM currently doesn't have spare cash hanging around to buy off dealers.

GM has massive dealer network problems even with Chevy, not to mention the Pontiac/Buick/GMC networks.

Chevy and Toyota sell equal amount of units in the USA, but there are 3 times the amount of Chevy dealers.

[Thinking Out Loud]

With arcticsteve's thoughts in mind - is Saturn doing all THAT badly based on it comparatively small dealer network?  I don't know the ratio - but if they are doing sales numbers somewhere btw what Chevy and Toyota are doing on a per-dealer network, it could worthy of inclusion in terms of identifying the distribution cost/success.

Maybe the other problem is the 'no haggle pricing' with Saturn - if they dropped it, would they not likely move more units at lower markup (preferrably still at a profit) than the current sales volumes get them? 

I like Mitlov's idea of Chevy/Cadillac.  Ford/Lincoln would be not much different.

The dealer network, like it's pension issue, is another legacy cross GM needs to bear. 

[gta_driver]

One of the problems GM has is that there are certain brands that do relatively well in Canada but do poorly in the USA. A good example is Saturn and Saab. So do you kill it for one country and not the other? It gets further complicated since a growing number of new car dealerships are owned by large auto franchise conglomerates who operate stores on both sides of the border and have certain gaurantees in their franchise agreements.

[toolatecrew]

If you are in cost cutting mode by chopping plants and jobs how many millions could you save by reationalizing your brands?

The marketing  advertising costs alone must be huge.

With raw material and thus parts prices on the rise anyone think you could save massive amounts of $ getting a voume discount on twice as many bumpers for Cobalt/G%s all stamped Chevy instead of 500K stanped Chevy and 500 K stamped Pontiac?

How much more efficient are your production lines if you don't have to make any changeovers ?

I would guess that if each brand was assigned its share of costs (not just those directly associated with the brand) and then compared to sales and profit it would become very apparent that some of them need to go.

I will never ever understand why there is a need for  a Cobalt and a G5.

[ArticSteve]

I will never ever understand why there is a need for  a Cobalt and a G5.

Is that what a "G5" is    and here I thought it was a relatively new over the counter medicine for gastritis.