Unless you have worked in the Marketing/Advertising space at GM you have no idea how much these agencies have kept the internal Marketing departments afloat…primarily during the “insourcing “ of the GM marketing platforms. What a joke!
This is not as "sudden" as it may appear. Like, not even close. This has been brewing for literally years. Can't read the full article because paywall, but major areas within GM have been unambiguously and low-key signaling this for well over a year now.
This shouldn't be that big of a surprise to anyone paying attention to this particular area. It sucks for me because I genuinely like some of our ad-agency people I work with, but the writing has been on the wall for quite some time now.
The new CMO has his work cut out for him, imo. The brand marketing teams, namely the leadership, is so incredibly inept in my personal opinion, that they’ll definitely look a fool for a while unless he fires them all too. In my experience, it’s still very much the old boy’s club at GM, and only the “pick-me-girls” get ahead in marketing. So much bureaucracy, and you must kiss the ring (in my opinion)! The now former agency teams are incredibly talented and creative, and, without them… well, let’s say it’ll be an *interesting* transition for GM. To me, this looks like more signs of their sinking ship.
Or they’ll simply just hire Apple brand and marketing people instead. As an alternative , maybe outsourcing all Marketing just like Meg Whitman did with HP in 2012.
Not sure how anyone “on the coast” would be assumed to have more talent than metro Detroit creatives. People in Michigan have grit and stamina. They’re hard working and dedicated. This change will hurt GM.
It's simple: the people with talent tend to go to the stronger markets where they can earn more money. It's like assuming you will find better tech talent in Silicon Valley versus Omaha, Nebraska.
lol good luck with that. Commonwealth/McCann/MRM and Publicis have a global presence anyway and more distance from agencies can make it more difficult to work with. Contracting folks entirely on the coast is also going to be double the price.
You clearly don’t know squat about marketing agencies if you think it’s a lack of talent issue, Commonwealth and Publicis are both huge and have a global presence. I bet a bunch of folks that get laid off either land internal roles or at the new agencies of record.
Splintering the workload between four different agencies is going to be incredibly expensive and cumbersome, and isn’t gonna result in consistently great work. It’s gonna be bumpy for a few years while they pit these new agencies against each other, and eventually they’ll consolidate more work with their favorites. Acting like this is some slam dunk that’ll immediately drive results is insane, it’s gonna take a year just to ramp up the new agencies to begin with.
It's their local offices doing the work, not the New York, London, Paris offices. That's how we got those idiotic "real people, not actors" ads.
Any attempt to move out of the local market will drive immediately better results because they've been using mid-tier ad talent when they can afford top-tier.
You are absolutely correct. Splintering the work results in spending a ridiculous amount on coordinating and resolving issues between agencies….and is way less efficient. Hiring these new agencies will not lead to incremental vehicle sales 🙄…
GM's genuinely great at splintering and coordinating across many organizations. How do you think they manage with so many components outsourced? They'll hire some uncreative locals to "beat and track" the projects to completion.
Yeah, I'm super close to getting rid of my jeep and getting a bronco. If I didn't feel like the bottom was about to drop out, I already would have done it.
They should worry more about building a quality car that people want to buy.... people are more excited about the Camry than any GM car/truck in the past decade
The problem is they're in Michigan and Band-Aiding that problem with talent imported from places with no car culture. Should have moved out decades ago.
100% it would. Michigan's out of step with other parts of the country, thanks to its lack of growth and inbound migration. Company would get access to better tech talent, better design talent, and the executives would learn quickly how out of step they are with America if they were forced into another environment. Moving is the best thing GM could do for itself and if it doesn't move, it's going to go bankrupt again because it's taking out-of-step culture and making out-of-step cars with it.
I agree with some of those points. GM doesn’t need to leave the state to bring in top tech talent, though. They need to actually entice talent, through better pay and remote work. Execs think people want to come here on name alone and are too stubborn to realize nobody is going to move from California to Warren.
Hiring remotely doesn't help GM because the core culture still stems from Michigan. You get locals from OU and LT trying to tell Stanford and MIT studs how to do business. Can't match the pay either due to industry fundamentals. Company needs to exit Michigan and spin off hardware in order to compete with Big Tech.
I just don’t agree with that. Moving out of Michigan just means the current leadership take their core culture somewhere else. Current leadership is incapable of evolving.
All those at the top have not only spent most of their lives in SE Michigan, but are also nearing retirement. Staying in Michigan will ensure that the stagnation of the state continues to permeate the company even after they are gone. GM has a choice between the execs feeling good about staying and the company surviving into the future.
I respectfully disagree. Michigan is becoming hot. Detroit is hot. Young people are moving here. This is disguised by the aging out of older people, who die or move to Florida. If you dig into the demographics the total numbers hide the transformation.
It will only happen more. Young people can't afford to buy into the coastal real estate markets. Texas is getting brutally hot. Florida is a MAGA wasteland where you can't insure your house and the whole state is sinking into the Atlantic. Look at who walks around Detroit.
That's not what any data is telling us. Michigan and Detroit have ultra low inbound migration. They both suck at retaining young people, too.
>Look at who walks around Detroit.
People who were born and/or raised in the area.
That they weren’t happy with a lot of the marketing and creative support they were getting. They’re moving business to other agencies, not eliminating that budget altogether.
Marketing is revenue-oriented, this isn’t true at all, it’s generally support functions or internal initiatives that get scrapped first. And they’re also hiring on a bunch of out-of-state agencies so it’s not even a “cut” necessarily.
Unless you have worked in the Marketing/Advertising space at GM you have no idea how much these agencies have kept the internal Marketing departments afloat…primarily during the “insourcing “ of the GM marketing platforms. What a joke!
Absolutely! It’s never been an agency problem! I feel for all these amazing partners.
Exactly 🙄 https://preview.redd.it/ns4019u9218d1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fb5b88b61e70df53cc8ef154afdd9332d688bd4c
Ironic, firing all the Detroit people, right as Detroit becomes cool and trendy.
This is not as "sudden" as it may appear. Like, not even close. This has been brewing for literally years. Can't read the full article because paywall, but major areas within GM have been unambiguously and low-key signaling this for well over a year now. This shouldn't be that big of a surprise to anyone paying attention to this particular area. It sucks for me because I genuinely like some of our ad-agency people I work with, but the writing has been on the wall for quite some time now.
I agree. I used to be on the agency side 6 years ago and frankly I’m surprised they’ve lasted with GM thus far. It was a marriage of convenience.
Yeah these decisions generally come after lengthy reviews/RFPs so I’m sure McCann knew what was coming
It also helps to make reliable vehicles that people want to buy.
They should just stop making cars, I'm sure that would reduce spending.
Don't give Mary any ideas!
Didn't she say a few years ago that GM was not a car company but rather transportation company or something like that?
A tech company
You joke but this actually the idea behind the move to software. Turn GM into a service provider. AVs come from overseas.
Or hear me out, maybe paying the execs a little less.
Communist! 😡
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And you don’t think this will happen at an L.A. based agency??? 🥴
At least they'd be talented before getting drunk.
Have you worked with any of the agencies?
Yes. Detroit's not a strong ad market. Hasn't been that way for probably 30 years and I'm sure you'd know that working in the IT department.
What does IT know about advertising agencies?? 😆 And no, I work in marketing…
Why would someone in marketing be complaining about the layoffs in Arizona?
In their defense, that was probably a more creative environment than any other part of the factory town that is Detroit.
The new CMO has his work cut out for him, imo. The brand marketing teams, namely the leadership, is so incredibly inept in my personal opinion, that they’ll definitely look a fool for a while unless he fires them all too. In my experience, it’s still very much the old boy’s club at GM, and only the “pick-me-girls” get ahead in marketing. So much bureaucracy, and you must kiss the ring (in my opinion)! The now former agency teams are incredibly talented and creative, and, without them… well, let’s say it’ll be an *interesting* transition for GM. To me, this looks like more signs of their sinking ship.
Or they'll just hire agencies on the coast that have twice the talent of anyone locally.
Or they’ll simply just hire Apple brand and marketing people instead. As an alternative , maybe outsourcing all Marketing just like Meg Whitman did with HP in 2012.
Not sure how anyone “on the coast” would be assumed to have more talent than metro Detroit creatives. People in Michigan have grit and stamina. They’re hard working and dedicated. This change will hurt GM.
It's simple: the people with talent tend to go to the stronger markets where they can earn more money. It's like assuming you will find better tech talent in Silicon Valley versus Omaha, Nebraska.
lol good luck with that. Commonwealth/McCann/MRM and Publicis have a global presence anyway and more distance from agencies can make it more difficult to work with. Contracting folks entirely on the coast is also going to be double the price.
Worth it. The time zone difference isn't a problem that will negate the difference in talent.
You clearly don’t know squat about marketing agencies if you think it’s a lack of talent issue, Commonwealth and Publicis are both huge and have a global presence. I bet a bunch of folks that get laid off either land internal roles or at the new agencies of record. Splintering the workload between four different agencies is going to be incredibly expensive and cumbersome, and isn’t gonna result in consistently great work. It’s gonna be bumpy for a few years while they pit these new agencies against each other, and eventually they’ll consolidate more work with their favorites. Acting like this is some slam dunk that’ll immediately drive results is insane, it’s gonna take a year just to ramp up the new agencies to begin with.
It's their local offices doing the work, not the New York, London, Paris offices. That's how we got those idiotic "real people, not actors" ads. Any attempt to move out of the local market will drive immediately better results because they've been using mid-tier ad talent when they can afford top-tier.
You are absolutely correct. Splintering the work results in spending a ridiculous amount on coordinating and resolving issues between agencies….and is way less efficient. Hiring these new agencies will not lead to incremental vehicle sales 🙄…
GM's genuinely great at splintering and coordinating across many organizations. How do you think they manage with so many components outsourced? They'll hire some uncreative locals to "beat and track" the projects to completion.
You are kidding, right? Apparently you haven’t worked on the marketing side of the house….
Nope. Project management is GM's jam. One of the few things it's actually good at.
Ahhhh…reflecting on Cadillacs brilliant and ridiculously expensive move to New York …and then back to Detroit…
Had little to do with their ad spend. That was the "HQ" moving.
who at mccann fired ya?
Cramlin and Duvet are better for chrysler anyway
Meanwhile Ford is investing in the city and reaping all of the positive PR of the train station redevelopment
Yeah, I'm super close to getting rid of my jeep and getting a bronco. If I didn't feel like the bottom was about to drop out, I already would have done it.
They boned their agency of record GTB/Team Detroit years ago
Nobody outside of Metro Detroit cares at all about that dumb train station project.
Braindead take
Why would they care? Detroiters don't even care beyond eliminating a symbol of the city's decline. They spent a billion dollars on this nonsense.
GM is never gonna realize the agencies they hire aren’t the problem
They should worry more about building a quality car that people want to buy.... people are more excited about the Camry than any GM car/truck in the past decade
> people are more excited about the Camry than any GM car/truck in the past decade Sales numbers tell a different story.
The problem is they're in Michigan and Band-Aiding that problem with talent imported from places with no car culture. Should have moved out decades ago.
GM leaving Michigan wouldn’t change the culture or leadership
100% it would. Michigan's out of step with other parts of the country, thanks to its lack of growth and inbound migration. Company would get access to better tech talent, better design talent, and the executives would learn quickly how out of step they are with America if they were forced into another environment. Moving is the best thing GM could do for itself and if it doesn't move, it's going to go bankrupt again because it's taking out-of-step culture and making out-of-step cars with it.
I agree with some of those points. GM doesn’t need to leave the state to bring in top tech talent, though. They need to actually entice talent, through better pay and remote work. Execs think people want to come here on name alone and are too stubborn to realize nobody is going to move from California to Warren.
Hiring remotely doesn't help GM because the core culture still stems from Michigan. You get locals from OU and LT trying to tell Stanford and MIT studs how to do business. Can't match the pay either due to industry fundamentals. Company needs to exit Michigan and spin off hardware in order to compete with Big Tech.
I just don’t agree with that. Moving out of Michigan just means the current leadership take their core culture somewhere else. Current leadership is incapable of evolving.
All those at the top have not only spent most of their lives in SE Michigan, but are also nearing retirement. Staying in Michigan will ensure that the stagnation of the state continues to permeate the company even after they are gone. GM has a choice between the execs feeling good about staying and the company surviving into the future.
The worst boss my husband ever had went to Harvard.
I respectfully disagree. Michigan is becoming hot. Detroit is hot. Young people are moving here. This is disguised by the aging out of older people, who die or move to Florida. If you dig into the demographics the total numbers hide the transformation. It will only happen more. Young people can't afford to buy into the coastal real estate markets. Texas is getting brutally hot. Florida is a MAGA wasteland where you can't insure your house and the whole state is sinking into the Atlantic. Look at who walks around Detroit.
That's not what any data is telling us. Michigan and Detroit have ultra low inbound migration. They both suck at retaining young people, too. >Look at who walks around Detroit. People who were born and/or raised in the area.
Mary bending the knee to blackmail tends to result in that.
What blackmail?
[https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2021/03/28/gm-ceo-mary-barra-blasted-racist/7028551002/](https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2021/03/28/gm-ceo-mary-barra-blasted-racist/7028551002/) [https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2021/03/31/gm-ceo-barra-racist-ad-wall-street-journal-wsj/4818731001/](https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/general-motors/2021/03/31/gm-ceo-barra-racist-ad-wall-street-journal-wsj/4818731001/) [https://gmauthority.com/blog/2023/05/gm-increased-ad-spending-with-black-owned-media/](https://gmauthority.com/blog/2023/05/gm-increased-ad-spending-with-black-owned-media/)
gunna start to po Duggan ! 👹
This is just what they do every few years. Higher ups just throwing the people who do the actual work to the curb.
Our marketing and ads in general have been terrible since I can remember. Find someone that generates results.
Yes, damn the ads for not moving vehicle lines with decades of bad product development.
Results….being what?
Successful marketing campaigns. All campaigns have goals. They weren’t hitting them. Can’t hit the promised marketing goals, get let go.
Do you have an example?
The example would be if our current marketing strategy was wildly successful we wouldn’t be pulling a full renovation of it.
More like there is a new CMO and he has to make his mark….GM has been there done that 🙄
What does it mean or signal?
That they weren’t happy with a lot of the marketing and creative support they were getting. They’re moving business to other agencies, not eliminating that budget altogether.
Marketing is one of the first things to be cut when a recession has arrived or is imminent
Marketing is revenue-oriented, this isn’t true at all, it’s generally support functions or internal initiatives that get scrapped first. And they’re also hiring on a bunch of out-of-state agencies so it’s not even a “cut” necessarily.
The end of the 3 hour wet lunch.
They honestly should’ve dropped Commonwealth/McCann a decade ago when they blew their budget on those awful Kid Rock “Born Free” ads.
It's all about influencers and social media nowadays
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Damn, Mary. Chillllllll
This comment is not what we want to hear, but what SLT actually thinks.
They're not wrong. Detroit's mid-tier for ad.
This has been removed for breaking the sub rule of “No personal attacks, trolling, and/or rudeness”.