UPDATE 6/21!: GM Cutting Another Division?

[Aprime]

Originally Posted by TriShield

GMC is selling Chevrolet trucks with slightly different styling, both completely overlap and cannabalize each other and drink from the same customer pool. With GMC phased out and Chevrolet selling fullsized trucks as always those customers will purchase them from Chevrolet while GM will no longer have to allocate double the resources to support GMC selling the same vehicle.

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No successful automaker in the world is nursing more than three brands.

As stupid as it is, it still has more brand equity than ANY other GM brand in the US aside from Chevy, that's according to polls. I know you could interpret it like uh... That being due to people identifying 'blue' GM dealers to Chevy and 'red' GM dealers to GMC, but that's been overlooked.

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Trishield, you're implying that Toyota isn't successful? :V (they're not limited to Lexus, Toyota and Scion, they also have a controlling stake in Subaru, they have Hino AND needless to mention the countless other brands they have in Japan).

[Vette Ninja]

It'd be such a waste. Pontiac could've been great with some competent managing.

And the GMC Sierra is awesome. It would be missed.

Hummer can't survive. Not as the market is now.

Saab looks like its actually got some worthwhile products coming, eventually.

Saturn is just getting good. Killing it now would be like killing it at its prime.

I still miss Oldsmobile.

[KillerMRK]

Originally Posted by mbukukanyau

where is GM going to get the 2 billion necessary to kill a brand?

Product starving is the "cheap" and "easy" way of killing a brand. Like they're doing with Pontiac. Where's the news of the G6 replacement? The G5 replacement? Or even the Solstice replacement?

[samkung]

Originally Posted by Aprime

I agree with you over Oldsmo... Wait, didn't they lose the right over the name lately? It was part of that April Fools' joke, remember?

But you're misunderstanding what Daimler is.

Am I, the Daimler name is owned by both Daimler AG and Jaguar, and Jaguar rebadge their XJ plus more wood and sold them us the Top end Daimler

[TriShield]

Originally Posted by Aprime

Trishield, you're implying that Toyota isn't successful? :V (they're not limited to Lexus, Toyota and Scion, they also have a controlling stake in Subaru, they have Hino AND needless to mention the countless other brands they have in Japan).

Toyota is successful with one brand globally, Toyota. They are successful with three in the US, primarily their own brand and Lexus.

GM is the polar opposite of successful with numerous brands in the US (where they need them the least) and worldwide.

Not too tough to grasp.

[TriShield]

Originally Posted by KillerMRK

Product starving is the "cheap" and "easy" way of killing a brand. Like they're doing with Pontiac. Where's the news of the G6 replacement? The G5 replacement? Or even the Solstice replacement?

Or the G8 replacement?

The answer, none are planned. Just cheap and dirty rebadges that kill excitement like the Aveo with a pig nose grille.

[Aprime]

Originally Posted by TriShield

Opel failed in the US the last time it was sold here, it would be no different today. And again, where is GM going to come up with the money to rebrand Saturn and educate consumers on a new name? What would be the point?

Opel has failed... Yeah, could you please dig-up the marketing strategy at the time along with countless other factors for me (import volume, etc), please?

Considering how much money they've been literally pissing into poor marketing tactics, I don't think money's the issue here.

I don't know what you link the Astra's failure to, but I personally link it to marketing, and marketing alone. They marketed out of their established customer-base first, than they didn't market it properly.

In Canada, it's selling at much greater rates than the Ion has now, and that's due to it being marketed EVERYWHERE. You see ads in movie theaters, on the roads, in your newspapers, on TV, just EVERYWHERE (AJAC also preferred it to the redesign Corolla - a 4 year old car winning over a new one is good news, I guess!). What's been keeping sales off earlier was STOCK, and stock is still an issue here. Whereas your dealers have a 300 or so day supply, ours don't, and they complain about how much time they take to arrive too (3 months from the moment they're ordered).

So, if you don't think it's worth the money to rebrand Saturn to Opel, well, just make sure they market them as Opels.

[Aprime]

Originally Posted by TriShield

Toyota is successful with one brand globally, Toyota. They are successful with three in the US, primarily their own brand and Lexus.

GM is the polar opposite of successful with numerous brands in the US (where they need them the least) and worldwide.

Not too tough to grasp.

You seem to be forgetting that Lexus is a world brand, but regardless, you're right... But still, domestically they have more than 3.

[Aprime]

Originally Posted by samkung

Am I, the Daimler name is owned by both Daimler AG and Jaguar, and Jaguar rebadge their XJ plus more wood and sold them us the Top end Daimler

...

Well, looks like Autoblog got me mixed up again.

I thought Daimler was just a Jaguar rebadge job to justify Daimler's name (Daimler AG).

[kilcher]

Saturn already has an identity crisis without renaming it.

[I-Love-Pontiac]

What really bothers me is it seems like they are not even trying. Yeah, Pontiac sales suck... but so do their cars. How is dumping off a brand that sells moderately well going to make things any better?

G8: very nice but it doesn't look good enough, and it's the wrong car at the wrong time.
G6: exactly what Pontiac should not be making
G5: solid car with solid performance, but way too boring to drive and look at.
Solstice: amazing design, ok in the fun department, horrible when it comes to livability.
Vibe: nice flexibility, daring styling, somewhat fun to drive. But too weak and probably too ugly.
Torrent: see G6

Now just to refresh everyone's memory, back in the early 80s Pontiac was doing about as bad as they are now. By the end of the 80s they were selling over 800,000 units a year. Which was almost double from just a few years earlier.

And you know how they did it? They got creative and gave the cars unique modern designs, made them smaller and more efficient, and they were actually FUN TO DRIVE. GM doesn't need less brands. It needs more innovation, more execution, and just pain... more. Every single company that has has tremendous success has done something very bold. Toyota's Prius, Motorola's Razr, Apple's ipod, Boeing's 787, ect ect. GM needs to start making the products that people didn't know they wanted. That's what they use to do.

[redimpss5]

Do they really need to make these cuts?

[djo165]

Originally Posted by eb110americana

Now that I have your attention, I'll have you know that the above brands are GM's best sellers, in that order. In fact, in 2007, just GMC and Pontiac together outsold every other GM brand in North America combined, excluding Chevy. That's right, redundant GMC and irrelivant damaged Pontiac outsold Saturn + Cadillac + Buick + Hummer + Saab combined by a ratio of about 4:3. See for yourselves:

GMNA 2007 Sales:

Chevrolet...................2,654,019
GMC...................578,845
Pontiac...................485,885
Saturn...................265,901
Cadillac...................225,032
Buick...................201,690
HUMMER...................59,141
Saab...................35,175
Opel/Vauxhall............2,248
Other...................7,906
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Total...................4,515,842

Source:
http://www.reuters.com/article/press...08+PRN20080123

For all you people who think Pontiacs should be sold as Saturns, Pontiac nearly sells double their volume.

Thank you, eb110americana. Finally, someone here posted some solid business information.

Sorry to see Hummer go, but it's for the best. RIP Hummer.

If GM kills GMC, then the BPG dealers are in deep trouble. Buick and Pontiac alone won't keep the channel afloat as there just isn't enough volume. And that's true even if they rebadge a few GMC models as Pontiacs.

I would vote for merging Saturn into the BGP channel, or at least some of the Saturn products, but then the question is how. Three possible scenarios in my opinion are:

1. Kill Saturn and sell their products as Pontiacs.
2. Kill Pontiac, and move Saturn to the current BGP, resulting in a Buick-GMC-Saturn (BGS) channel.
3. Kill Pontiac, rename Saturn to Opel, and sell through a Buick-GMC-Opel (BGO) channel. (Just like the 70's!)

I vote for #1, giving the Saturn products (or some of them) to Pontiac and killing off Saturn. Also, as much as I like the Saab 9-3, I'd vote for getting rid of Saab in the US as well. Just not enough sales here to warrant the investment in advertising and marketing.

[Gagarin]

Ugh. Terrible news.

They really did a number on Pontiac before Lutz got there, and I think he may have been too late - and then all this CAFE business and the axing of the RWD, which meant there were probably several cars that got stopped DEAD in their tracks. There's not a lot of cash to go around...

GMC - what can I say? During the SUV/Truck cheap gas boom, GM had the chance to differentiate GMC from Chevy trucks. What a great opportunity! 1 platform, packaged differently, selling to two different crowds. Ford and Doge only get 1 prong of attack - GM could have had 2. All the resources they put into packaging GMT products into Hummers could have been spent making GMC go a different direction and conqure whatever people were alientated or turned off from Chevrolet styling.

Extra rigid beds, extra durable interior (not a living room!), power outlets, whatever 'Professional Grade' actually means GMC could have been the people who brought it to you.

Taking your horse or your racing car to the track? Use your Chevy. Bring back some groceries, too.

Hauling a few thousand pounds of building material and your generators and tools? Take your GMC.

*sigh*

They could have done "the GMC Hummer".

Killing any of these is a bad idea. The opporunity cost is immence. Axe Hummer if they must, but there's not a whole lot of stuff there. It's GMT stuff.

PBG = Chevrolet but niche, focused, brands. Smart move. The dealer channel isn't moved to this yet in all areas. Saturn should have been weened out earlier instead of propping it up like they did. They should have put all that work into Pontiac instead...

[Flyingbunnys]

I stopped reading around page 6 but I think I got enough to toss in my 2 cents. So, here we go this is my oppenion.

Sell Hummer, GMC can cover for it and does the whole truck thing better anyways. Plus hummer has negitive image now a days.

Don't get rid of any more brands just make them smaller. I mean seriously does pontiac need like 8 models? Heck no, I should have like 3, and they should all be sporty to a degree.

Avoid putting any trucks and SUVs into buick's line-up, thats GMC's buissness.

Also Satrurn is starting to get to many models as well it should be the whole small euro efficent theme for saturn.

All the brands can stay they just need to all downsize to about the size to about 3 models and let the others take care of what they don't cover.

The only two full brands should be Chevy and Cadillac.

Buick's line up is perfect as it is now.
Saturn should be Aura, Astra and a zafira or something (No Sky, or large SUVs)
Pontiac should be Solstice, a mazdaspeed 3 competitor, and a V8 Monero.

Also I don't think GMC needs a crossover just a Truck, Large SUV, and small SUV.

See how it all fits together well if they only have 3 models each?

PS. Does GM really need Vauxhall?