The TrueTalk Blog

Bob Lutz: My Blog Put A Human Face On GM

All of you loyal TrueTalk Blog readers out there know that I have a great deal of admiration for Bob Lutz, Vice-Chairman of GM. Lutz started blogging several years ago and for about a year and a half after he did, I noted each of his posts with some commentary of my own.

Lately, Lutz has taken to YouTube, a change I noted in a brief talk I gave at TED last year. In this video, Lutz talks about why he started blogging and gives his assessment of the FastLane Blog's impact. The video is definitely worth ten minutes of your time, if for no other reason than to watch a master communicator, who also happens to be a senior executive, in action.

A YouTube Point of View on GM

Readers know I've been following Bob Lutz's attempts to rejuvenate GM for a couple of years.  Recently, I've backed off a bit on my coverage, just to watch how things are going.

Bob's latest post  reports on GM's solid performance at last week's Detroit Auto Show. The company garnered several prestigious awards and made a significant media splash with the Chevy Volt.

But the news isn't all good. Toyota is poised to take over GM's spot as #1 car manufacturer in the world. Skeptics point to spots like this CBS Sunday Morning segment (featuring Mr. Lutz at his best!) which still show GM trailing in basic style and performance categories. Here's the video of that segment (embedding not available).

Since I've been video blogging on YouTube for several months (and on LiveVideo for a few days), I decided to make a video asking my viewers about GM. I asked viewers to talk about the GM vehicles they owned and to say if they were considering GM for their next purchase. Here's the YouTube video, and here are the responses. The LiveVideo responses can be found here.

In addition to the text responses, I also received this video response, which I thought was worth including in this post.

I think it's fair to say that some of the commenters (who are a textbook example of an "anecdotal" sampling) have had good experiences with GM but that the majority have not. As Lutz incisively pointed out in the CBS segment, getting buyers to include GM in what is known as their "consideration set" is the biggest battle. Many, many people dismiss GM vehicles out of hand, never even bothering to look at them. That's a huge problem for GM to overcome, but, as always, I admire Bob Lutz's way of fighting the good fight.

Car Wars

Good versus Evil. Is there a better story line? We've loved it since the Garden and aren't likely to tire of it soon.

So, it's good to see a big time columnist like Derrick Z. Jackson of the Boston Globe and a top-flight corporate communication executive like GM's VP of Global Communications, Steven J. Harris frame up their respective arguments about the worthiness of GM's vehicles in these Biblical terms.

Nothing like a little nuance to help readers get the full picture.

First, Jackson writes a column saying that "everything you need to know about American automakers" could be gleaned from reading, "four recent newspaper clippings." In some journalistic circles, this is called "investigative reporting," in others, it's "dereliction of duty." Polemicists can always find simple sources to affirm their points of view, and Jackson's no slouch in the polemics department. Listen:

The Wall Street Journal reviewed the Chevrolet Suburban and 3-ton Ford Expedition Extended Length. ``With their big gas tanks, a fuel stop can be jarring," the Journal said. ``It cost $97 to fill the Suburban, making it necessary to fish out a second AmEx card when we exceeded a station's $75 charge limit per credit card."

You must be kidding. For the fourth straight Labor Day, American soldiers are dying in a botched war in an oil-rich land. Big oil is exploiting wartime uncertainty by gouging Americans at the pump for record profits. Real wages for Americans have dropped since the invasion of Iraq.

What is Detroit's response? Cars that get 17 miles per gallon  on the highway and cost nearly $100 to fill.

American soldiers dying in a botched war,  big oil exploitation, real wages dropping. Why are these things happening?

GM's making Chevy Suburbans, that's why.

That, my friends, is a polemic. Or at least, the beginning of one. Jackson goes on to skewer Detroit executives for, 1) inadequate passenger room in the Cadillac Escalade ("How could it be that General Motors makes two metallic mastodons that are each over 5,600 pounds, nearly 17 feet long, 6 feet tall, and 6 feet wide, and still do not have enough space?"); 2) proposing the "muscle-bound Camaro" as  its next big thing (instead of a much-more-responsible competitor to Toyota's Prius); and, 3) the failure of GM executives to perform ritual suicides in the face of their company problems, like the Toyota President Katsuaki Watanable symbolically did in a press conference while lamenting Toyota's recent quality problems. (The problems compelled Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe to bow to reporters in July and say, "I take this seriously, and I see it as a crisis. I want to apologize deeply for the troubles we have caused." You never see the CEOs of Detroit bow in apologia.)

How ludicrous is this? A columnist chiding an auto manufacturer for expensive gas, big vehicles with too little interior room, product rollout choices and insufficient humility!

Give me a break. You can almost hear Darth Vader's strained breathing when Jackson describes those Detroit evil doers!

But then, here comes Steven Harris to defend GM's honor: Yoda at his side, Obi-Wan on his shoulder, and Luke's light-saber blazing! The good guys are here!!

Here's his measured rhetoric:

General Motors is working hard to build a stronger America that’s less dependent on oil, and we’re making significant progress. What we don’t appreciate is the kind of cynical propaganda that Mr. Jackson has engaged in recently, which seeks to portray Detroit automakers as buffoons and our Japanese competitors as flawless. It’s almost as if he wants the U.S. auto industry to fail. Why?

Harris is puzzled: "We're trying, we're really trying so hard; why don't people like us?"

Why?

Um...because you screwed us for decades? Because you didn't give a lick about safety when seat belts were proven to save lives? Because you waited until cars burst into flames before recalling them? Because you made expensive products that rusted out in three years?

Do I really have to go on?

That's why people don't like you, or trust you.

Here's an oldie but goodie that comes back to me at times like this, Mr. Harris: "You can't talk you way out of something you behaved your way into." Trust comes from action, not words.

I actually believe GM's on the way towards re-establishing credibility, in some small part due to Bob Lutz's blogging. But they obviously still have a long way to go.

And with folks like Derrick Jackson making them out to be evil incarnate, I think they might be getting the picture about just how tough a road this one might be.

Hey, GM, nobody ever said this was going to be fair. But, may the Force be with you!

GM: Using YouTube Smartly

I've been writing about how important it is for businesses to explore YouTube's treasure chest of information.

Here's one example: GM gathering people's videos of their cars.

Smart. What are you doing?

 

Bob Lutz: More Power(train) To The People

Wow! Two posts in five days for Bob Lutz at the GM Fastlane Blog.

Today's unexpected announcement from Lutz on GM's behalf: as of the 2007 models, a five-year, 100,000 mile warranty on the powertrain of all GM vehicles.

Pardon me for being unimpressed. Like I wrote yesterday, quality is the cost of entry into the competitive game today. It's only a differentiator if it's a negative. No bonus points for delivering reliable quality.

So, what does GM do? Well, they provide an extended benefit for their customer, one the customer's been waiting for...but they diminish the impact by going half-way. Yes, the GM warranty is better than Toyota's 60,000 mile powertrain deal. But, not enough to make a splash.

Want to make a splash, GM? You know what that would take: 10 year or 100,000 mile, bumper-to-bumper, best-in-the-industry warranty. That would make GM a leader, not a "me-too" company.

I know I'm speaking without the benefit of cost-based facts here. But I am talking with the benefit of an understanding of the kind of announcement that really gets the public's attention and changes people's minds about the cars they trust and want to buy.

How can you make the kind of turnaround GM's trying to make without making the kind of really big move signaled by an overall warranty?

"Because we can" was the slogan Lutz used to describe this change.

What else can you guys do to show your confidence in your product?

Bob Lutz: Quality Guy

People telling you that the quality of their product is great somehow strikes me like a parent telling you their child is cute.

It may be true, but it's really not their call.

That was one response I had to Bob Lutz's most recent post on the GM Fastlane Blog.

Then he goes on to say that lots of OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) have been forced to recall vehicles this year including, (gasp) import manufacturers. Maybe I'm crabby, but we've heard all this from GM and other American car makers before. It reminds me of a client I once had who told me that his company's product was, "just as good as everybody else's." I suggested he take out an ad that said, "we're no worse than the other guy!"

What Lutz is tiptoeing around is an important point: American cars can't compete with imports on quality anymore. Not because American cars companies aren't making cars of the same quality as imports. As Lutz points out, they are. Twenty-five years late, American cars are now "no worse than the other guy's."

Hooray.

Who cares?

Well, that's not fair either, people do care. But they care in the same way that they care about your furnace working when they're thinking about buying your house.

Does the furnace work? Yup. OK. Will that get me to buy the house? Uh...of course not. The only way the furnace enters into the equation of me buying a house or not is if it's NOT working. Then, the furnace matters.

The only way "quality" matters to car buyers today is in the absence of a negative. If the cars DON'T work like all the other cars, then it matters. If they do, it doesn't.

Lutz knows that, and that's why American companies can't compete on quality. It's not a competitive issue, except in the negative.

Now, before Rick Waggoner is forced to walk the Bill Ford Memorial Plank, GM's gotta keep competing on the things that Lutz knows best: elegant, compelling, emotionally stirring driving experiences.

That's the quality that really matters today.

Color Our World

Chris Webb, an Exterior Color and Trend Designer for General Motors, North America, provides an interesting insight in his post on FYI Blog today. The post is  cleverly entitled, "Orange You Happy With Your Car Color," referring to the resurgence of the color orange in all things fashion over the last five years. Of course, that trend is playing very strongly in the automobile industry.

Being a psychologist, developments like this always intrigue me. Colors cycle in popularity. You need only look at the avocado and gold appliances that proliferate in magazines from the late 60s and early 70s to see once popular shades that today appear hideously out of place. Color/texture combinations also go in and out of favor; matte vs. shiny black, for example. And, black itself, for that matter, once a signal of plebeian ordinariness (Henry Ford's "any color as long as..."), now a mark of power, luxury and taste (watch for the black Escalades in both the rap videos and the Presidential motorcade.) Or, as Webb points out obliquely, in episodes of The Sopranos.

Point is, the social and emotional uses of colors provide brands with an enormous chance to influence the meaning others ascribe to our products and experiences.

But, how do you know which colors are "hot?" And, how can you tell what they mean?

Well, the most obvious way is to look around. For instance, if you go to Martha Stewart's homepage, you see that the predominant color is a deep celedon green, appearing to me a little deeper than it's been for the last few years.

Why? What emotions does this color evoke? It's calming, that's one thing. That calmness feels good. There's a lack of trendiness to it that's appealing; it looks like a color that could endure, rather than quickly become tiresome, like that avocado refrigerator. But wait. If you look at Martha's page more closely, you find that orange that Webb spoke about used as an accent color. The combination seems to say, "we're traditional, but modern."

Of course, in all my years in working in the fashion business, color has always been a topic of intense discussion. All fashion designers in big companies subscribe to color and trend services, companies whose business it is to let everyone know what the "colors of the season" will be. Ever wonder how all the designers managed to pick the same color palette year after year? That's how; they all listen to the same gurus.

We also used to have continual discussions about which industries led the color trend: furniture, automobiles or fashion. Webb refers to this in his post.

Now, reading the gurus' reasons for choosing colors is quite an experience. What you find is a mixture of Nostradamus ("the cocooning trend will continue, but with a new need for flair") and physics/physiology ("the powerful stimulation provided by the brighter shades is balanced by the visceral pull of the earthtones.")

It's fun, even if it is hooey.

The point is that color is extremely important in many, many ways. We signal a great deal about ourselves and our brands through our choices of colors. Which means that we should never simply do so without thinking deeply about our customers, our intentions and the current milieu.

Now, the fact that this blog adopted an orange and brick color scheme recently should not be read to mean that the author is hip. Only that its designer knows how to propose eye-catching color schemes!

Camaro Man: Lutz Gives People What They Want

Here's what's smart about Bob Lutz's blogging. After establishing his blogging bona fides, chops, or "street cred" as we call it today, Lutz can now drop into the 'sphere periodically to make big points. He did so again today when he seconded Rick  Wagoner's announcement about putting the Camaro into production.

He starts by tipping his hat to Fast Lane readers:

Ever since we launched this blog over a year and a half ago, a few recurring themes have peppered your comments and feedback, and perhaps one more than any other. For a while there, it seemed like Fast Lane would turn into "All Camaro, All the Time."

We'd post something about fuel economy; someone would respond by telling us to build a new Camaro. We'd write about the latest J.D. Power Dependability Study; someone posts about missing Camaro. Our revamped value pricing system? Camaro. A brand-new GM rollover testing facility? Camaro.

He then cops to reality:

I'm not going to tell you that Camaro is happening because the blogosphere demanded it; that would be disingenuous. But I will tell you that the enthusiasm shown for Camaro in this forum is a shining and prominent example of the passion that exists for this automobile, and we thank you for sharing it with us.

Nicely done. You affected our thinking, but we decided for bigger reasons.

Smells right.

He then goes on to enthusiastically describe the car, which sounds pretty nice. I saw the concept car version at this year's NY Auto Show, and it was sharp.

But the point for me, as always with Lutz's use of this medium, is the way he directly communicates with his various audiences.

And the commenters are already going bonkers!

Summer Conversationalutz

After a lengthy blogo-hiatus, Bob Lutz returns to GM Fastlane Blog today, full of interesting stories.

First, Bob's been traveling. He's been to visit the product development team in Europe, although mums the word on what's happening there. He's also been to  Canada, where he apparently spoke with the team in French ("...it’s amazing how sincerely appreciative they are for the simple act of communicating with them in their own language.") His travels reminded Lutz of the uniqueness of each market, something both Niti Bhan and I have remarked about in the past.

Then, almost as an aside (but clearly not so) Lutz addresses the comments of one of Fastlane's readers, Dan Cadigan. I'm taking the liberty of posting Cadigan's remarkable June 29th blog comment in its entirety. Actually, the comment took the form of a note to Lutz:

Hi Bob:

I am 45 and my wife and I have 4 kids. We are looking for a new vehicle and over the last few weeks have started the search.

I am proud to say that I once worked for Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna, NY in the Coke Ovens. I have strained to always by US vehicles from US companies and have held true to that to this day. I recall to this day seeing the last Ore Ship come into "big steel" on the shore of Lake Erie at 3 am on a warm July morning and shed a tear as the crew waved goodbye as she slipped out the next day.

I am shedding tears again. My 13 year old son saw me cry for the first time last night as we compared Toyota and Honda to GM products

Their is no real comparison. I almost bought a Honda last night and that's when I started to cry in the dealership and could not collect myself until we got home.

The people at Honda and other customers looked at me like I was nuts. They don't understand
At the Chevy dealer, I could have fired a cannon and no one would have heard it go off. At the Buick dealer, the sales people were running out the door 30 minutes early and didn't have time for me.

When people like me start to bolt away from US manufacturers, you're done

I can't even find a good excuse to buy a GM...0 % financing does not make up for failed quality and pricing that is too high

I could not sleep last nite. I saw the faces of the guys who were walking dead men in the Coke ovens who after 30 years of chemical baths everyday were essentially dead men walking

It's haunting...yet right now, I am going our Saturday and buying the Honda...why shouldn't I....I'll take any answer from anyone out there...give me a REASON, not an EXCUSE.

Remarkable, is it not? Set aside your reactions to the fellow's experience and focus for a moment on his. Here's a man who's passionate about his country and believes his automobile purchases are an extension of that passion; "buy American" is more than a slogan for Cadigan, it's a deeply held belief. And he's in pain over his inability to find a GM vehicle that will meet Japanese standards.

Given that passion, kudos to Lutz for engaging in a conversation, of sorts, with Cadigan. He begins,

Dan, I know that my staff has contacted you, but I feel compelled to let you know that I personally appreciate your loyalty and the emotional connection to the American auto industry you have demonstrated.

OK, stop there. It may strike some of you as gratuitous, but here we have the vice-chairman of an American institution responding to a customer both personally and through assignments to his staff.

Every have that happen? No. Every hear of it happening? Didn't think so.

Now, Lutz then goes on to tell the fellow that he believes GM either is producing, or soon will be producing, vehicles that meet his needs, and that he disagrees with Cadigan's assessment (which Cadigan offered in a remarkable chain of comments) of GM's quality.

Never mind any of that.

For me, GM, and Bob Lutz in particular, have once again shown the power of blogging in an open and authentic way.

The particulars of the case are interesting, but the dynamics of the conversation are nothing short of remarkable.

And, for the record, Lutz never brought up the words "Nissan" or "Renault."

Update: Read Catigan's first comment on Lutz's post to see the impact this kind of conversation can have.

Tags: GM Fastlane Blog Bob Lutz Dan Cadigan

Fueling Around With Lutz

After all the hoohah about GM and fuel economy lately, it's no surprise that Bob Lutz returns to blogsylvania today with a brief post about, what else?, mileage!

Ho hum. We're not used to things that sound like obligatory comments from Lutz, but I'm afraid this one fits that bill. He sort of gets caught up in his underwear a bit:

On the fuel economy label, there won’t be a lot of difference, because the fuel economy label cycle calls for idle, for example, and on idle you have to run all six, otherwise you get a rough idle. So you don’t save anything there. And you don’t save anything at full acceleration and most of the other requirements they roll into the cycle procedure. But the way most people drive, as you know, can be considerably different from the fuel economy label cycle.

See what I mean? Not all that compelling. But, hey, not every Scorsese film's Goodfellas!

Tags: GM Fastlane Blog