GM States Their Case

Apparently, my last post on the current state of General Motors got their corporate attention.  Cynthia Price, Manager of Diversity Sales & Marketing/Women, addressed some of my statements in a thoughtful post on the GM Fast Lane blog. She writes:

"Women are an important and influential group to GM. We very deliberately design, develop and produce cars with the quality, safety, technology and fuel efficiency women want and need for their daily lives, their careers, their families and their communities.

... We are also marketing to women in ways that are important and unique to them. We started by educating our divisions about the women’s market, and we’ve influenced everything from product development, marketing, and dealership environments.

We reach out to women – where they are – with information they need. Women increasingly use the Internet for car shopping, so we created gm.com/women and filled the site with valuable information. The gm.com/women site is an extension of our “Women with Drive” printed guides; both are valuable tools that help women feel comfortable with vehicle purchases, maintenance, service, and safety."

I encourage you to read Ms. Price's complete post, along with some fantastic comments left by readers.  GM is definitely not off the hook with these people!

I applaud GM for making an effort and congratulate them on their design awards.  But beware... if they have indeed worked on educating their divisions about marketing to women, it's not being translated through the dealership level.  Advertising to the female market?  Except for one Hummer ad I'm aware of, advertising is practically nil.  Actually, it really is nil, now that the death knell of the H1 is a reality.

And yes, Ms. Price is right... GM does have a website devoted to female drivers.  But I challenge you to try and find it from GM's homepage.  There is absolutely no indication that such a section exists - difficult to locate using a search engine and nearly impossible to find on the corporate site itself.  It could also use some additional content that is relevant besides service schedules and safety tips.  It would do them good to take a look at the Wyndham Hotel site and explore Wyndham Women on Their Way.

GM has made a tentatively decent beginning at marketing to women, but it's just baby steps compared to what they should be doing.  I truly appreciate their efforts to acknowledge the market, but to come out a winner in my book they need to understand the different individual personas that women represent (enough already with the Soccer Mom), start speaking in a language that resonates with the right brain and understand what the future holds in terms of technology and society in general.  Hmmm... might do them some good to catch a WonderBranding seminar some time...

So... we hear what you've done, GM.  What's next for the future of marketing to women within your company?

Comments

[Robert Paulson]

First - great blog. My target audience is most often women for my ventures, so I will find your resource valuable.

And having grown up in a GM executive family, I can say with a little authority (only a little) that GM does very much consider women when designing their vehicles. They have for years. But for an equal period of time, they have really sucked at marketing those vehicles to that audience (or any audience, for that matter). So often my frustrated father would watch as a Japanese car company would make a new claim in an advertisement and grumble "We've been doing that for 5 years. I sure wish our marketing department would figure out what people want/need to hear." (This was more than 2 decades ago, and much has changed - except GM's marketing ineptitude.)

As for a women-only site.....umm, are you serious? Should it be pink and purple, with pictures of puppy-dogs and babies? Maybe keen marketing minds like yours should put together demo profiles of people likely to want certain vehicles and market accordingly, and not have to make several versions of a website to speak the "language" of the various possible consumers.

I do get a laugh when any group gets angry that a company doesn't market to them well enough, like there's a marketing dollar threshold of respect a company must exceed for a person of that group to consider making a purchase. Like earmarking marketing dollars should now be put into the hands of people for whom civics is their strength, not marketing. If they don't market to you, they don't market to you. Maybe they don't value you as a market. Maybe they do, but they suck at attracting you. So laugh at them. Pity them. Turn your back on them. But get mad at them? Gimme a break.

Did I mention I think this is a great blog? Figured I should mention it again after all that.

[Ed Kohler]

It seems like GM sells a LOT of cars, and I imagine a large percentage of car sales involve both spouses in a married couple, so there must be some marketing connecting with women historically. Does it only count if it's overtly done?