Car Marketing
 

Got a little curious from that debacle of a SS thread..

Just cause this is a domestic site, lets use GM as an example, how do they determine whether to market cars in order to draw in younger audiences that are not used to GM quirks etc, or whether to go after the older crowd who has had GM and would not like abrupt styling changes etc?

Simple answer from the BigAl?

They need to make a good lookin 2 door with awesome technology in it. It should also be able to get 27mpg mixed. Price it between 16-20k and it will sell. I think that's the first step. They need to make the car that young people will want, can afford and makes sense.

they need to stop joining market segments 4 years after their competition and break some ground themselves. sort of like what they were trying to do with the 2.3 200 hp quad 4 cylinder motor back in the early 90s....but with more reliability :D

good question, just hope this thread does not run 14 pages deep...

Kind of what the TRU 140S was hinting at.

....thats what i've been saying for the longest time. It appears the new 2014+ gms may be equipped w/wifi. Legality issues aside, this is market setting...keep on thinking along those lines and gm may start being an innovator.

That's the **** that GM needs to put into a good looking car. Not a sonic. No one will ever line up to buy a sonic. :facepalm: Kia really set the bar with tech they throw in their cars. Honda is trying to catch up by throwing backup camera's in their civics.

I'm a huge fan of GM but I'm not going to lie and say that I haven't looked into Japanese cars. I've test drove a few and I've driven a Cruze. I'd say the quality was pretty much the same. It's all about making something geared towards young people and they will sell.

I'm not trying to hijack the SS thread anymore but I need the older guys who are out of touch with the younger people to understand that the most common cars I see at my school are all newer Civics, Kias, Mazdas and big surprise here Scions.

They need to do early stage research to determine which market segments are the best fit for a new or updated development effort. Really that's the be-all-end-all.

No sense in trying to fight an established market leader if the likelihood of customers switching buying habits is almost nil. Sure, they may think the new GM XYZ sport compact is really cool, but they buy a Corolla or Civic Si at the end of the day since it's well established and the "Asians build the best reliable small car" mentality is very prevalent.

Then follow it up with something like a conjoint analysis where consumers can rank the best features they would like in the new car, etc etc to make sure you have a good match of product.

Taking a WAG as to what people want is how you end up with an Aztek or a Lincoln Blackwood.

Any time you mods want to go ahead and show this guy the door, be my guest. Gay Al? Cute.


So, let me get this straight. It's stupid for GM to put tech into a ****** car lie the Sonic, but it's a mark of brilliance that Kia and Honda put it into cars that the Sonic competes in?

It won't change, at least not till your older, and that depends on about a dozen different variables.


They do that

NO sense fighting a market leader? So just ignore and forget about it? Why should GM tackle the main markets? Are you guys serious?
That's what GM did for 20 years.

They do this. They do this all the time, and they have been beaten up over and over again over this. They put cars through design clinics and consumer clinics and sit people down and talk about what they want, and they pool these ideas together and come up with generic, boring cars that don't appeal to anyone.

GM has ****** marketing. It is and will continue to be their weak spot and it will bring them down again. Between a BoD that are weak, a blind-leading-the-blind Executive leadership, and a yes-man crew that clouds everything, it's amazing GM produces the cars that they do.

Depends on the market demographic.
First off, you can sell an old man a young man's car, but it's very hard to sell a young man an old man's car.

Car segments have demographics, and they use info they gather from people buying their cars as well as the competition to make certain cars. Now, with that said, it doesn't exactly work out that way. Cars that tend to be marketed towards younger people also appeal to older people. Take for example the Kia Soul and the Scion xB. These cars are marketed towards young people who have "active lifestyles" and "millennials" that love iPhones and wear plaid. But, Kia and Toyota are perplexed to see a lot of Boomers driving them, and for a multitude of reasons.

If you want a glimpse inside GM's "marketing" set up, there is a good section in Bob Lutz's last book that talked about him sitting down in a room and shown this massive matrix of qualities people like in a car, and through this they could "predict" market trends and segments that are going to be big. This matrix figured out that a not-a-SUV and not-a-minivan type vehicle that seats 5-7 people is a market that needs to be approached. They found this out in the mid 90's, a while before the first "crossovers" started popping up.

So GM put together a team and came up with an answer for a car that wasn't an SUV and not a minivan. That car was the Aztek/Rendezvous.
A good idea, put in the hands of clinics, ran through the accountants, and that's the product you get.

the sad part about the aztek is that the technology underneath it was actually pretty awesome. its a shame they never used that front wheel drive transaxle transfer case to good use in their smaller cars. the 3400 v6's had pretty decent power in an aztek and wouldve been pretty sport as an awd malibu of some sort :(

If switching behavior is almost nil it's not a worthwhile investment when they can spend their money elsewhere to get a better return. This strategy has been used at countless places to figure out how to maximize their development efforts. It's common practice in many industries. I'm not saying ignore an entire car segment, rather I am saying they need to focus on battles in which they can win big gains. Look and Honda and the Ridgeline as another example. They tried and it is an apparent failure.

If GM can drive a wedge in between small car owners and their love for non-American economy cars then by all means go for it. But for ****'s sake try to understand your market and don't pour money into a hole trying to sell cars to people that won't even consider your brand.

Porsche learned this lesson the hard way in the 80s. I've spoken with the guy responsible for the MR surrounding the 928 (in the USA) at length and it's a shining example of not understanding the depth of the pool before you jump in. The big takeaway was that they underestimated the RX-7 and the Z cars, their price point, their performance, and their popularity.

I can't say that I've been witness to what GM does behind closed doors, but I have seen some of what they do firsthand and it did not seem to be designed very strongly. However that was back in '07-'08 and it may have changed.

And this doesn't come from a douchebag on the Internet trying to pick GM apart like you are probably used to. I deal with this type of stuff all the time at a professional level and have seen my share of successes and failures with product positioning. I can say from industry experience that GM's stuff appears to be pretty weak (as you have stated yourself). Part of me understands, as there are plenty of other places for them to spend money right now. It just irks me that they seem to miss the mark and build **** that nobody needs or will buy. I hope they continue the forward momentum and change that.

Edit, saw the last post about Lutz, and that's a GD tragedy. Good info, good idea, piss poor execution. Argh. I'd love to see where exactly that all went south. I can't imagine that there were a group of consumers that saw the car and thought "HELL YEAH, THIS is what I want".

I think GM should take away from what Hyndai has done. I hate to say that but if GM wants to be the best in the world then have the Vette, and Camaro and trucks and then sell nice cheap cars that get 30 miles per gallon. When my wife bought here brand new Elauntra 5 years ago, think we paid out the door 17,000 after tax and everything. The car got 30 mpg, had a good amount of options and did what it was ment to do. Dont worry about building cars that are called SS and slapping a 415hp motor in them to only get 20mpg. Put out good size 4 door cars that get 30 mpg, have a 100,000 mile bumper to bumper warrenty, garuntee the drivetrain for life, Give tires for life option, and price it under 20,000 brand new with power everything, moonroof, ect. Thats what sells cars now. Always have the Vettes, Camaro's, Trucks, and a sporty sub compact car but make most of your cars in the 18-25,000 range.

My Dad is a prime example. He is retired and has been kicking around the idea of getting a new CTS. Problem is he loves his Hyndai Accent to much to get rid of it. He loves the 35mpg, and how simple the car is. He has always talked about getting a new Caddy when he retired. He has been retired since 2007 and he is still rocking his Accent. He can afford to buy a brand new CTV if he wanted and pay for it with cash but he does not want to anymore.

GM put their money in things like trucks for years, while ignoring cars. Their theory was that since cars don't make money, why invest money into them? And when truck sales kept going up and cars going down, they stopped investing in cars like Cavalier and there was a massive turn over of different name cars between 88 and 2004.

Honda did the Ridgeline because it was something simple, it kept the plant going at capacity, used existing parts and a chassis, all made in America. It made lots of money and appealed to Honda people that would normally would have went elsewhere. The Ridgeline changed the game for the midsized trucks, and EVERYONE had a similar design on the drawing board. Dodge, Ford, GM, and Toyota all had shown a similar vehicle within a year.

You don't know unless you try. Making competitive products is what GM needs to do, not abandon markets because it's too hard. Look at the Cruze? First year, it was the best selling car in it's class, and has maintained decent sales numbers, despite the influx of great cars from Japan, Korean, and America.

Even cars like the Sonic and Verano, traditional areas where GM would just mail it in, have class-leading products.

Changing people's minds about American products is going to take a three-pronged effort from all the American brands. With Cruze, Focus, and Dart, you have three very good vehicles. The reason Civic and Corolla will continue to sell well is because of an established 20+ year name plate that hasn't been challenged ever. Clearly, it's going to take at least another generation of really good cars to change perception, but none of the domestic 3 can just force people to forget the **** they made up until a 5-6 years ago.

Yet Porsche is one of the most profitable companies in the world, Mazda is moments away from falling apart and Nissan is owned by the French. Porsche has four cars and will have 2 SUVs as well as a 1 supercar. And the Panamera will soon spawn a front engine, rear drive sports coupe.

Designed as in actual designed, or designed as in their marketing?

GM has a lot of hits and misses. When they focus on something, the product is great. But they can goof up big time when they just mail it in. ATS is a great example of a sharp car with laser focus on making the best car in it's class.
The new Malibu is a good car, but it doesn't keep up with the jonses, and that's why the sales are ****.
GM realizes this, so they are going back and revamping the car for later this year.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...9IB8hA7q5WwnJ3

The Aztek concept was better looking than the actual product.

Lutz talks about how this matrix was ******** and how it couldn't predict the success of a car like the PT Cruiser. It was then that one of the guys yelled out, "YES IT DID! SEE, HERE IT IS!!" and showed Lutz the matrix for that saying that a small, 5 person, high style, 2 box design.
So Lutz said, "So....where is our competition?"
Lutz shut down a lot of crap that came out of the matrix. They wanted to elongate the VUE to make a 3 row SUV. He took one look at the design and threw it out. See, GM was right that a 3 row crossover is a smart idea, but they wanted to execute it as cheaply as possible instead of making a proper chassis for it.
Lutz pushed forward the Lambda cars (Traverse/Enclave/Acadia/Outlook) and that was the answer to that.

GM is full of very smart people, but there is no one to corral all that stuff together and come up with good product. Lutz put the designers and engineers ahead of the bean counters, even bypassing the "process" a few times to get things done. He famously put the design teams into a competition to come up with a roadster, and the Solstice was born. It was an exercise to see what type of talent they he had.

For the exception of a few of those things, GM already makes that. They have a 40mpg Sonic and a 42mpg Cruze that have 100k powertrain warranties and are priced under 20k.

Hyundai has the advantage of a cheaper labor force, so they can undercut everyone. This wasn't an issue till they started making attractive cars, but Hyundai tends to be a grand or more less than it's American and Japanese competition.

He likes simple, high MPG cars, so he isn't in the market for an advanced luxury vehicle. Sure he can afford it, but it doesn't fit what he wants or his needs. So why get an CTS? My father kicked around the idea of a smart phone, but he loved his flip phone for years. He finally picked up a phone, and he is not a fan. It's too complicated, it does too much stuff he doesn't need.
My dad is like yours, he wants a comfortable car that he can drive. If he could opt for no radio, he would. He sits in some of my test cars, he wonders wtf all this **** does and why do people need it.

Al... when is the new generation Dmax debuting?