GM may kill a brand besides Hummer

[stovt001]

Originally Posted by camaropete

Saturn gives them a low-cost line to compete with the likes of Kia and Hyundai.

Saturns are pricier than Chevrolets. You can't negotiate a lower price either.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by The_Blur

I still believe that Hummer is worth keeping, especially if GM eventually acquires Jeep. They can be combined under the Jeep name and offer combined platforms.

That's a great idea but it's only applicable in a whole other world where GM can be buying brands. Right now they need to liquidate stuff and raise some quick cash at the expense of giving up future profits.

[stovt001]

These ideas for keeping brands and giving them a specific purpose sound great, but there are a few problems:

1) The growth of the internet and the information people have easy access to makes it much harder to differentiate a brand. A car company just can't slap a new badge on another brand's car and say it is something completely different. A quick trip to Edmunds or any other car website will let a customer know that whatever they are looking at is just the 20th car built on the Lambda platform and they could get the exact same thing with a Chevy badge for thousands less.

2) GM swore up and down for years that they'd stop badge engineering, and it has only gotten worse. Having GM keep anything more than 3 NA brands (and that is pushing it) is like strapping cartons on cigarettes to someone who is trying to quit.

3) When the primary GM NA hierarchy was formed (Chevy -> Pontiac -> Olds -> Buick -> Caddy) GM practically owned the American market. Ford owned most of the rest, Chrysler had a solid chunk, and everyone else was a footnote. Now GM has no greater market share than Toyota with its 3 brands. There is only room for so many brands in the market and as new ones enter, some have to leave.

4)GM just gave us the Pontiac G3. What makes you think they have any interest in making it a performance brand? Even if they wanted to do a lineup of performance cars, the dealers keep screaming for rebadged Cobalts, Aveos, and Equinoxes. Buick, on the other hand, is sticking perfectly to its brand differentiation.

5) Corporate culture is everything. Saab built its image on quirkiness and Pontiac built its image on rebelliousness. Both of those words perfectly described everything GM corporate culture is NOT.

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by heaz

drop
Daewoo-useless
buick-crap
and gmc- same as chevy

keep hummer b/c there is nothing else like it

Originally Posted by heaz

and drop saturn b/c it is the same as pontaic

Daewoo is GM's bread and butter in most markets outside of North America. Buick is their most reliable line. GMC is their most profitable line. And Saturn is turning into Opel/Vauxhaul of North America. Though saturn does share a lot of platforms with Pontiac too. Because of that, I think that every sporty Saturn (250 hp Aura, 260 hp Sky) should be droped and every eco-Pontiac should likewise be droped (G3, SE anything).

Its the international aspect that makes this soo dificult. While we may not like the Chevy Aveo over here, its twin is very sucessful in Korea and China. Speaking of China, Buick is rated as one of the best brands of car over there. On par with Lexus and BMW. And nothing like Hummer? What about Land Rover?

Originally Posted by theholycow

GMC and Chevy each sell enough pickup trucks to compete with any other pickup brand alone. If GMC was eliminated, would all the GMC buyers buy Chevy instead and Chevy sell twice as many pickups as anyone else?

That's not a rhetorical question, I'm really not sure why GM's trucks sell so much more (besides the fact that they KICK ASS) but I have to wonder if branding is part of it.

Sierra+Silverado don't sell much more than F series, if any more. But it is quite a way down to Dodge, Toyota, and Nissan.



The other thing is how does GM get rid of these brands? Sell them? Sure they would have lost the cost of rebadging their cars, but they also lose sales to someone else. And killing a brand? That costs billions of dollars. I don't know of a 3rd way to be rid of a brand.

[radz28]

I've never been a Buick fan but don't even plan on owning a Saab or Daewoo. It's bad to read something like this but it's for a greater good.