Cruze -- Ambassador on Wheels
From the time I was a young kid growing up in Detroit, the first car I remember my Dad having in the driveway was a 1957 Chevy. I can still see it shine under the shade tree in our backyard as he waxed it with great care on a Sunday afternoon. It was very stylish back then, and is in fact still today one of the iconic symbols of the automobile in that era. It wasn't an expensive car, but it had everything our family needed. I was always extremely proud of it, and my friends thought it was cool.
That feeling about Chevrolet has stayed with me over my 35 years with GM. I have been fortunate enough to work on the Chevy business during that time in North America, South America, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. And for the last 10 years or so, I've also been a part of our global efforts to manage the Chevrolet brand in a more coordinated fashion across the more than 120 countries where we do business. The really good news in all of this is that our market research, our dealers and our customers around the world tell us pretty much the same story -- Chevrolet is a brand known for expressive cars at a great value for the money.
Since I've been working on the Chevy business in Europe for nearly three years now, I remain frustrated that there are still just too few people who know who we are, what we stand for, and what products we have to offer them. Sure, we've been growing incredibly fast these past few years, but there remains some confusion about whether we are a global brand with an American heritage, or something different. So I try to think about new ways to get the message out every day. I think about it at work, at home, while I'm driving, while I'm shaving, and even sometimes when I'm sleeping.
We're slowly making some good progress in growing our consumer awareness through our advertising, our promotions, our dealers’ outreach into their communities, and, of course, with some great new car launches over the last couple of years, too. We've introduced the Epica sedan, the Captiva SUV, and most recently the new Aveo small car. These cars are all doing well and have made a strong statement for us -- they're practical, friendly, high quality, affordable, and true to form, darn good looking. But as great as these cars are, we need more. Fortunately, to remedy that, the product side of our brand proposition just keeps getting better as we move forward.
Cruze hits the scene this week. For those of you who will see the car at its global premiere night in Paris Wednesday evening, perhaps you will begin to see why I think that this new car is about as close as we have ever come to expressing the potential of the Chevrolet brand. Cruze was designed to be all Chevy from day one. It has solid ride and handling, top-notch safety features, competitive fuel economy, high quality, all the comfort and convenience that you need, and a list of standard features that gives you a lot more than you would expect from such an affordable car. It is a statement of confidence that looks the part both inside and out. With Cruze, you can make a very smart choice with your wallet, and not have to compromise on content, performance, styling or brand character. In short, Cruze is a car that people will notice and that customers will be exceptionally proud of.
In addition to all that, for me, this car is also a new spokesperson to take the Chevrolet brand to the next level in Europe. Cruze can say "I'm what Chevy is all about" better than I ever could. Cruze is my new ambassador on wheels.
Wayne Brannon
Executive Director Chevrolet Europe
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- Posted in BusinessVehicles |
- Comments (17)
Comments (17)
gmo said:
Sorry Wayne,
The European Chevy's are still re badged Daewoo's to me in the same way as the South American Chevy's are re badged Opel's.
The current GM branding strategy will be the end of GM. People travel these days and when they see a BMW or Mercedes, they see they're the same all over the world, but when the see these renamed no name GM products with random brand badges, they feel manipulated. It is as easy as that.
Gereon (from Germany) said:
Dear Mr. Brannon,
to my knowledge the Cruze will arrive at German dealerships in early 2009, replacing the Lacetti. What would be interesting to me:
1) Will this model be available over here also with this reportedly highly efficient 1.4 turbo-charged engine (140 HP), as described recently in various US-media releases?
2) Will the gasoline engines be E85-ready and will there also be an option for a LPG-conversion, as it's available for the current Chevrolet Germany portfolio?
I think this would be a huge advantage vs. the competition. IMHO Diesel's are increasingly becoming uninteresting over here and maybe an E85/LPG-capable Cruze would be a compelling alternative for those people, e.g. who can't afford a Chevy Volt in three years.
It would be nice to get some information about that. Thank you very much in advance!
Gereon (from Germany) said:
GMO, you are totally overlooking that also other manufacturers are doing things, which are known as badge-engineering. You'd like some examples?
Already in the 70s: VW Polo - Audi 50, later then: VW Sharan - Seat Alhambra, Ford Fiesta - Mazda 121, but also brands with high reputation like Rolls Royce and Bentley had not been excluded. You are insufficiently informed, if you think Mercedes, as mentioned, has never done badge-engineering.
FYI see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badge_engineering or
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badge_Engineering
Sorry, it's absolutely ridiculous, when some people always are telling that badge-engineering is a thing invented and only conducted by GM. Those people simply don't know the facts! Of course the Chevrolet-models (except the HHR) over here are rebadged GM Daewoo-vehicles, but so what? Chevrolet is one of the fastest growing brands all over Europe. In the meanwhile they are selling more cars in Germany than (e.g.) Mitsubishi, Subaru or Alfa Romeo. I think that's remarkable after that relatively short time as Chevrolet was introduced over here.
gmo said:
Gereon,
The point isn't the badge engineering, which was invented in the UK during the 1960's (and killed the British car industry). The point is that GM can put any label on any car on any market, with very little thought and expect people to have a perception of the brand at the same time!
The only way to build brands are to be consistent, and GM is everything but that.
Imagine Sony putting the PS3 logo on all Sony DVD-players in South America.
Imagine Apple selling calculators as iPhones in Europe.
Not very likely, right?
Imagine GM putting Chevrolet logo's on Opels in South America
Imagine GM putting Chevrolet logo's on Daewoos in Europe.
Still a wise thing to do?
ANDONI (SPAIN) said:
gmo, you have reason...
Thestrategy of GM with the brands is not correct.
I know people who think that Opel is an american brand, and other many don´t know where it is...Here it is the opel identity problem.
With saab, and chevrolet I think the same.
GEREON:The example of the alhambra and the sharan is totally diferent to the GM´s. Have you seen audi with the vw logo nowadays?? I never..
Imagine one mercedes c200 with the chrysler logo.. This will be the MB dead. I know that the vw group share platforms,engines but the strategy is very good, the vw people know very well where are the limits. All the people know that audi is a vw brand but audi have independence to do the cars but this doesn´t mean that audi cannot share some engine or technology with vw, but always knowing the limits...This is the reason to the vw group success.
Have you seen the Opel insignia and the GMDAT cruze? The cruze seems a copy of the insignia(in the exterior. This is very bad for opel identity..
In the opel web who I am a member, are a lot of post about the ope lidentity problems.
I have seen posts that said that opel are rebadged vauxhalls and holdens....but it is only one example...
Gereon (from Germany) said:
"Imagine GM putting Chevrolet logo's on Opels in South America
Imagine GM putting Chevrolet logo's on Daewoos in Europe.
Still a wise thing to do?"
GMO, I still don't get it. You are mentioning just two examples, which prove to be very successful for GM! As you should know, the South-American market with its rebadged Opel's, as you criticize, contributes to most important profits for GM abroad. Chevrolet, you call it rebadged Daewoo's, is enormously growing in the red-hot market of Russia, as well as in other European countries, e.g. in Germany. People over here are even well aware, that those cars are made by GM DAT and not by GMNA. BTW, as we spent vacation on the Canary Islands twice, we saw there as much Chevy Aveo's on the road as Volkswagen's in Germany! Success in sales is the final measure, whether a decision is right or not.
Gereon (from Germany) said:
Hi Andoni,
I am wondering how anybody could think, that Opel is an American brand. It's one of the oldest German brands with a tradition of more than 100 years, whereas it belongs to GM since 1929. I think in this case those people know very little about the automotive world. I can't recognize any similarity between the Chevy Cruze and the Opel Insignia! Sorry, even my 74 years old mother wouldn't mix up these models.
BTW, according to the well-known Car-And-Driver-magazine the Chevy Cruze was designed in Korea, but engineered in Rüsselsheim, Germany. So it anyway would be totally inadequate to regard it as a truly GMDAT-sourced car.
Why is it something different, regarding the Seat Alhambra and VW Sharan? These cars are also nearly identical, just wearing different names. I have seen them both on our roads with my own eyes. GM is also sharing platforms, even in a smarter way than VW does. Opel delivers much more value for the money than VW. The new Passat doesn't impress me much in comparison to the Insignia or the all-new Cadillac CTS, just as two examples.
Rdeiriar said:
The branding of cars is something i have never understood completely. My new Chevrolet Astra is completely Opel, made in Antwerpen, except for the bow-ties in the steering wheel, the alloys, the front and the rear. Would i prefer it to wear Opel badges? Yes!. Am i happy with my purchase? Yes, absolutely, my new car (Astra Enjoy 1.9 CDTI 120ps) is fantastic.
On the other hand, i understand that having two brands means spending twice as much on dealerships, advertising, etc.
What i would ask from GM is consistency. Now we get the european made Astra as a premium product. When the new Astra is launched 2010, please send the new one here as well, and let the Cruze be the value option. Do not make the same mistakes as in the past (and VW until now) of selling the same model for ages in South America, until it is completely out of date! (VW sells the Golf IV here....).
Best wishes from Santiago,Chile, and a big thank you to Rüsselsheim and Antwerpen.
Roberto.
gmo said:
Gereon,
I agree with you that the car industry is really bad at brands. BMW is probably the only car maker that is treating its brand with respect - and that has payed off.
Regarding Chevrolet, the brand had, prior to the Daewoo cars a very good reputation in Sweden based upon cars made in the 1950ies and 1960ies. By slapping it on Daewoo's which were known as the biggest piece of crap you could buy, the brands reputation has really gone down hill. So yes, you are right, GM are selling more Chevy-Daewoo's than they sold Daewoo's but at the price of ruining the brand name.
Other devastating examples are SAAB 9-2X and 9-7X which were badly disguised Subaru's and Trailblazers. That is taking non premium cars, putting in leather seats and selling them as premium cars - doesn't work. Just destroys the brand!
Building brands takes decades - ruining them takes less than a year.
If GM just had phased out the Daewoo's and replaced the with new Chevy's it might have worked, but it would have taken 5 years, and GM is too impatient for that!
ANDONI said:
Hi Gereon,
I don´t doubt that Opel is an German brand but is true that Opel have identity problems...
You could only say the example of the alhambra because is the only rebadged car in the VW group...
I Know that other groups have one or two rebadged models in some markets but aren´t all the markets, like GM...
The cruze and the insignia have very similar design. (look the lateral , the doors...) I am completely sure that the cruze were designed in germany too.
Is true that the vw design is very boring, but vw in now the 3º car company...GM is the 2º...and was the 1º.
Remember that VW is the company which have profits these last months... They have very boring design but they have cars the people want to buy.
Wayne Brannon said:
Mr Langlitz,
Thank you for your questions. I'm not trying to be evasive, but there are some answers we have to keep close to our chest as in this highly competitive business of ours the competition is very keen to learn what we have planned. At this stage what I can reveal is that initially we’ll be offering the Cruze on the European markets with two gasoline engines— a 1.6 and a 1.8 liter displacement. We’ll also offer a 2-liter diesel. I'll go as far as saying that at start of sales in Europe, the two gasoline engines will not be E-85 compatible. On LPG what I can also say is that Chevrolet has been very successful with LPG conversions in many European markets and we are selling large numbers of LPG vehicles in Italy, Germany, France, Poland and other countries. We plan to continue selling LPG vehicles in the future and even expand this part of the business.
Wayne
Gereon (from Germany) said:
Hi Andoni,
and what about the VW Lupo / Seat Arosa? What about the VW Polo / Audi 50 in the 70s? So the Sharan / Alhambra was not a single case. Well, VW may do this not so frequently, but we are talking just about the principle...
VW was gaining in recent times, but is still about 2.5 million vehicles behind GM in annual sales. After all, GM still is nearly neck-on-neck with Toyota and holds, despite all the talks of crisis, the same or even a better market-share in the USA than VW does in Germany. Today GM may have cash-flow-issues, which they have to overcome, but the products have vastly improved, also acknowledged by many independent experts.
My car is also badge-engineered. It's a 2001 Chevy Alero and I was aware, right at the beginning, that it actually is an Oldsmobile. However, it doesn't change the fact, that it is a well-equipped, reliable, comfortable, roomy and fun-to-drive sedan at an inexpensive sticker-price. Simply great value for the money. With its LPG-conversion it's even cheaper at the pump than a Prius.
Gereon (from Germany) said:
Dear Mr. Brannon,
of course I comprehend that you can't disclose too specific details. However, thanks a lot for your kind answers. Just looked at the interior-photos of the Cruze. Awesome! I'll keep an eye on it.
Keep on doing this great job!
Best regards
Gereon
Gereon (from Germany) said:
"Daewoo's which were known as the biggest piece of crap you could buy..."
GMO, these are just biased statements, without any relation to the facts. Chevrolet Germany with its GM DAT-sourced models ranked higher at the 2007 quality-report from the large Auto-Bild magazine than any German brand! My wife is driving a Chevy Kalos since 2006 and is very satisfied with it. No major problems so far and the fit-and-finish and the perceived quality of the interior is better than we found it at her co-workers VW New Beetle. Sometimes I think, most people, who are sceptical about GM DAT-products have never seen one in real life. Daewoo is one of the world's fastest growing car-companies, starting at about 300.000 cars five years ago and now selling about 1.3 million annually. You couldn't seriously believe, that would be possible with inferior products!
gmo said:
Gereon,
Let me tell you a story:
A colleague of mine bought a brand new Daewoo Tacuma a couple of years ago, and in the end he had to sell it within a year because he needed the car daily and it had been in the repair shop for more than a month during that time. Furthermore GM wouldn't fix the squeaking suspension the fourth time because "it is a Daewoo, it is not a SAAB". But it was broken and on guarantee!
It was pretty funny to talk about during coffee breaks, but I'm glad it wasn't my car.
Bottom line: GM themselves thought the Daewoo was crap.
And Gereon, this doesn't mean that the Daewoo built Chevy's of today are crap, it just means that it was unwise to put Chevrolet labels on those Daewoo's, which was my original statement.
Do you see the difference?
Gereon (from Germany) said:
Hi Andoni and GMO,
I'd recommend this story from a neutral source:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061213/AUTO01/105280002
Gereon (from Germany) said:
GMO,
of course it's very disappointing, as your colleague encountered so many problems with his Tacuma (here known as Rezzo), but, however, it always could happen, regardless the brand, that anybody has bad luck and purchases truly a "lemon". I don't want to downplay your friend's frustration, but I also know several cases from owners of so-called "premium-brands", which had the same or even worse troubles with their cars, than your colleague ever had. Three years ago I also was wondering, whether it might hurt Chevrolet's reputation to source models from GM DAT. However, finally the facts are: The Aveo is not slow-selling in the US, although its origin is known there and the global annual sales of the Chevrolet-brand are at about 4 million vehicles... I think, also other car-manufacturers, which decided to badge-engineer certain models, wouldn't have done this without expecting certain benefits. You may like or dislike this, but it's a common behavior nowadays. Just some minutes ago I learnt on TV, that the Peugeot 4007 and the Mitsubishi Outlander are practically the same car. That's for sure not the last example.