General Motors Takes Out Huge Ad Admitting It ‘Betrayed’ Its Customers
Posted December 9, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Advertising is supposed to promote a company’s best side and make you want to buy its products. So you can only wonder how bad things are when a firm buys expensive space in an industry magazine to apologize to consumers and admit it let them down.
But ‘bad’ may not be a word appropriate enough to describe General Motors, which took out the full page spread in the Automotive News, a trade journal that covers the industry. The copy has the world’s biggest car maker admitting it “disappointed” and even “betrayed” its customers as it struggles to stay afloat amid huge losses and requests for taxpayer handouts.
It’s an unusual humiliating departure from GM’s former stance, which tried to blame the economic downtown for the problems at the firm, and not its own inefficient practices.
“While we’re still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you,” the ad reads. “At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our designs became lackluster.”
The General, as it’s sometimes known, acknowledged many of its problems were internal and pledged a new “commitment” to customers.
“We have proliferated our brands and dealer network to the point where we lost adequate focus on the core U.S. market,” the frankly worded copy continues. “We also biased our product mix toward pick-up trucks and SUVs.
“We have paid dearly for these decisions, learned from them and are working hard to correct them by restructuring our U.S. business to be viable for the long-term.”
The print mea culpa appears aimed at securing an $18 billion loan from the American government, a deal which is said to be close. U.S. political reps have taken all of the Big 3 – but especially GM – to task for profligate spending that included flying into Washington on private jets asking for the handout, hardly a sign of restraint.
The copy notes General Motors can’t survive without that requested cash infusion and that “millions” of jobs are at stake – including positions in Ontario, where layoffs have already started. “Despite moving quickly to reduce our planned spending by over $20 billion, GM finds itself precariously and frighteningly close to running out of cash,” it warns.
The print prognosis promises a restructuring of the way the company does business and vows to pay back taxpayers by the year 2011.
The U.S. is said to be close to a deal that will approve the one time multi-billion dollar bailout for GM, Ford and Chrysler. It would involve an overseer or a car czar who will ensure that the companies are keeping their word and making the needed changes, or the loans could be recalled, forcing them all into instant bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, the prorogued Canadian government is still struggling with a loan application on this side of the border. GM wants an immediate $800 million and another $2.4 billion. Chrysler Canada is demanding $1.6 billion and threatening to close its Brampton facility if the money isn’t forthcoming, and Ford is hoping for a bailout package worth $2 billion.
Maclean’s Magazine’s take on the ad
Photo credit: Rick Gershon/Getty Images
