General Motors Marketing Budget Returning To Pre-Pandemic Levels
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General Motors plans to increase its marketing budget in the coming months to bring it back in line with pre-pandemic levels, the automaker’s Chief Marketing Officer, Deborah Wahl, said this week.
GM CMO Deborah Wahl
Speaking during a recent online Reuters Events conference, Wahl said the automaker has plans to boost its marketing budget in the coming months and will implement new advertising strategies that will help it appeal to different kinds of vehicle buyers. GM cut its annual global marketing budget by about $1 billion last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reports, dropping it to around $2.7 billion.
“What we went through in the pandemic was certainly severe and we should be moving back up to our normalized levels,” Wahl said during the conference.
While GM’s marketing budget will return to pre-pandemic levels shortly, its marketing strategies will be much different. The automaker is increasing its marketing spend with social media influencers, Reuters reports, which should help increase brand awareness among younger vehicle buyers. It will also host more entertaining vehicle debuts and launches, the publication says, and personalize its various marketing materials to appeal to more specific buyer groups.
“We’re looking at really changing the way that we spend,” Wahl added.
This marketing strategy shuffle comes just as GM is preparing to launch new battery-electric vehicle offerings like the 2022 Chevy Bolt EV and 2022 Bolt EUV, GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq.
The debut event for the Bolt EV and Bolt EUV, which was hosted by TikTok star Nik Cho (@YourKoreanDad) and was filmed on location at Disney World, serves as a potential early example of the automaker’s new ad strategy. The debut event featured a production-heavy commercial for the new EVs called Magic is Electric, which was developed in partnership with Disney and starred multiple Disney animated characters.
Similarly, GM hired Lebron James to promote the launch of the GMC Hummer EV, getting the basketball star to post videos of the new battery-electric pickup truck on his Instagram story. James also appears on other marketing material for the truck, serving as an official Hummer EV brand ambassador.
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I see a black person.
Melania Marriott/Hilton/or whatever hotel you’re turning trix at this week.
Can you see which finger I’m holding up?
oh god the crazy trumptard strikes yet again!
Me too .BIG MOUTH Labron James. If he’s the spokesman I’m out.
The header photo with the chick and that EV skate board chassis has a very “1984” feel.
I wonder if gm is going to Lebron spew his China and Chairman Xi is great and F the Police and kill the Police mantra.in advertising.
The only ads I want to see are cool ones for the Camaro and blackwings. Hire people from Dodge to do these commercials. Don’t make them cotton soft either. Appeal to the men who will buy those machines.
lowercased gm should have chose another ambassador for the Hummer EV. The average GMC buyer is a professional and dresses well. I get it they want to make EVs appear to be cool and generate some type of lust for them.
GM marketing is as bad as GM product planning. This from the company that changes the name of their vehicles so often that nobody knows what any of them are. And to think Lebron James is a good choice for a Hummer Brand Ambassador? You instantly tune out at least 50% of the country with that move. It’s getting harder and harder to support this company.
@Chris
I guess I have to ask but why does GM lose 50% of the Country with this move?
I am assuming they are using LeBron because he’s a famous Hummer fan.
Fact: someone like Tim Allen, a huge car guy would NEVER get picked because he is “right” and doesn’t a left turn in is body or follow any political 3rd party organization based on race.
I can name others that would be a perfect fit with 5 times the pull than scared 2 faced LaBron …
GM had turned away from Red White Blue and Apple Pie advertising. Marketing has a challenge ahead of them.
More importantly, selling Chinese made cars in America. How do you NOT tell America in a commercial the Chinese made SUV is Apple Pie… Well, LaBron can sell it for them and the NBA can get some financial benefit on the backside…
GM is getting off the track…now on board with the politics of election voting, against voter ID.
Effective advertising is the art of taking a product you’ve never heard of before and making you feel you’ve wanted it all your life.
Okay, so they’re going to advertise product that isn’t available for us to purchase, & at the rate things are progressing on the chips, it’ll be 2022 before we’re able to get the 2022 Camaro. These companies seem to forget that we do a lot of our own research and they will lose a lot of people playing politics for any group, considering lots of us are tired of the government BS.
Too many black people. The media is obsessed with minorities