Car Guys vs. Bean Counters - Bob Lutz [101]
The excuse given for the PMP process is that it provided “general corporate alignment on objectives.” In my view, that would have been accomplished by a short memo from the CEO. I’d much rather have a group of executives who know the overarching goals, and know in a fast-changing environment what they should be working on. The PMP process added nothing except, once again, that analysis-derived comfort level. Out with it!
I would have attacked what I considered to be our weak, sometimes close-to-clueless marketing activities. GM had precious little in the way of gifted marketing executives—men and women with an innate feel for the product and the best ways to convey its advantages to the public. Our longtime ad agencies would have had to go. It’s not that they were bad agencies—they did good work for other clients. It’s just that we have had them way too long, some for over seventy-five years.The benefit of this long-standing relationship was that agency and client were intimately familiar with each other’s foibles. That was also the main weak point. We took each other for granted; there was no “tension” in the relationship. The agencies made themselves useful by assuming much of the workload of our internal marketing people.Whether it was “brand boards,” presentations, marketing proposals, or whatever—the agencies did it. In essence, we were paying, in many cases, twice.
Further, the agencies knew exactly what kind of advertising would be “acceptable” to the client: safe, uncontroversial, not too product-focused, and it had to tell some sort of heartwarming story, as opposed to focusing on reasons why the customer should pay $35,000 for this particular product. I proposed changing agencies once and was told this was “unthinkable.” Too much agency change promotes turmoil and inconsistency. Too little promotes complacency, mutual tolerance, and the production of an ineffective stream of inoffensive advertising that does not sell cars and trucks.
During my reign, I would have sharply trimmed the scope and power of Product Planning. My experience at each of the Detroit Three has taught me that, far from being inspired “car guys” (includes females), most product planners are highly analytical left-brainers, often of exceptional intelligence, and many are recycled finance executives with the same fondness for and faith in highly detailed quantitative analysis—the farther into the future, the better. Product planners will often use statistical data to come to highly improbable conclusions, and since they are there to plan “new entries,” there is a pronounced tendency to identify ever more “segments,” or pockets of demand, and “subsegments” within the segments. And, each time a “segment” is “discovered,” a certain percentage of it is assumed for the GM brand in question. Adding all that up theoretically results in more market share, but in the real world, it does not.The consumer does not think by “segments” or even categories, and two vehicles of the same brand, but of differing “segments,” sitting in the same showroom, will not result in two sales. The customer believes them to be much the same, and selects one.Thus, the Chevrolet Equinox laid waste to the slightly larger Trailblazer, and the Ford Escape dispatches the Explorer.
“No, no, you foolish customers! You’re not supposed to do that!” the product planners cry. “The Equinox and Escape are small front-wheel-drive car-based utilities. The Trailblazer and Explorer are midutilities, with real frames and rear-wheel drive. They are different products!” The customer, however, sees in each case, a fairly large, box-shaped, four-door sport-utility that will carry five people in safety and comfort. “Which one is cheaper? I’ll take that one.” Many product planners have little or no understanding of the real world as it unfolds in a dealer’s showroom.
At Chrysler, I once had to address an auditorium full of product planners who wanted to know why I hated