GM Shops Sweat as Lutz Sunbathes in Caribbean
GM's new marketing top gun, Bob Lutz, met with the automaker's brand teams on July 14, spent 10 to 20 minutes critiquing the work for each brand and, in the words of someone in the know, "crapped all over the advertising." Then he jetted off to the Caribbean island of Montserrat on holiday, leaving some scared individuals in his wake.
That's left GM's ad agencies on tenterhooks in anticipation of more-in-depth reviews this week of current and upcoming ads with Vice Chairman Lutz and each of the company's four core U.S. vehicle brand teams. The shops are also fretting that Mr. Lutz -- given his history of "design bake-offs," where he threw out projects to a group of designers and chose the best work -- might do the same with creative work on Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC.
What he's made very clear is that the brands are on notice and the ads are going to have to change to fit Mr. Lutz's branding beliefs and aesthetics. In a webcast carried on the company's Fastlane blog the day before the agency meeting, Mr. Lutz promised, "I think you will very quickly see a drastic change in the tone and content of our advertising. And if you don't, it will mean that I have failed."
Specifically, he told the brand teams last week that Cadillac's generally well-received and popular ads with "Grey's Anatomy" star Kate Walsh from Modernista are too dark and said Chevrolet's campaign from Campbell-Ewald -- still in the can and yet to run -- is too lifestyle-focused.
But it was Buick that took the most public beating for the uninspired "photo shoot" TV commercial that aired broadly for about a month until last week. In his public webcast, Mr. Lutz singled out that spot, saying, "That Buick commercial tested very well, which is not the same as saying that it's an effective ad." Buick VP Susan Docherty told Ad Age the pretesting landed in the "top quartile" for originality and breakthrough work.
DETNEWS | Weblogs | Autos: Scott Burgess' Blog
That's left GM's ad agencies on tenterhooks in anticipation of more-in-depth reviews this week of current and upcoming ads with Vice Chairman Lutz and each of the company's four core U.S. vehicle brand teams. The shops are also fretting that Mr. Lutz -- given his history of "design bake-offs," where he threw out projects to a group of designers and chose the best work -- might do the same with creative work on Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC.
What he's made very clear is that the brands are on notice and the ads are going to have to change to fit Mr. Lutz's branding beliefs and aesthetics. In a webcast carried on the company's Fastlane blog the day before the agency meeting, Mr. Lutz promised, "I think you will very quickly see a drastic change in the tone and content of our advertising. And if you don't, it will mean that I have failed."
Specifically, he told the brand teams last week that Cadillac's generally well-received and popular ads with "Grey's Anatomy" star Kate Walsh from Modernista are too dark and said Chevrolet's campaign from Campbell-Ewald -- still in the can and yet to run -- is too lifestyle-focused.
But it was Buick that took the most public beating for the uninspired "photo shoot" TV commercial that aired broadly for about a month until last week. In his public webcast, Mr. Lutz singled out that spot, saying, "That Buick commercial tested very well, which is not the same as saying that it's an effective ad." Buick VP Susan Docherty told Ad Age the pretesting landed in the "top quartile" for originality and breakthrough work.
DETNEWS | Weblogs | Autos: Scott Burgess' Blog
