Mark LaNeve, GM's new VP/Marketing and Advertising speaks
As we promised, (8/17 TVBR Daily Epaper #160), GM's new VP/Marketing and Advertising Mark LaNeve, spoke to TVBR about his new position, upped from GM of Marketing for Cadillac since 2001. LaNeve, as head of Cadillac, is interviewed in our current September and August issues of RBR. (Call April McLynn to subscribe and get the issues 703-719-9500). This is the first in a series that will continue into next week.
Congratulations on your obviously huge promotion.
Thank you, thank you. I look forward to the challenge. It's a little bittersweet. I've enjoyed the ride at Cadillac over the past three years, let me tell you. It's been a lot of fun, I think we've done a little bit of good, and I've got a great guy replacing me-Jim Taylor. I think he'll be able to keep the ball rolling. And remember, I'm not going that far, Cadillac is part of my responsibilities in my new assignment.
Seems like you've really got Cadillac on track right now. Now it's time to look at the whole picture.
I'm going to get in and figure it out. I've been a little myopic in terms of Cadillac, so I've got a lot to learn. But, I'm familiar with all of the other divisions, of course, because we sit in a lot of the same meetings-it's the same design center, same engineering group. But in terms of the hardcore issues that they're investigating every day and trying to work on, I've got to come up to speed and I'm going to do that really quickly.
What initial goals do you plan on addressing in this new position?
The primary thing we are going to try and do is the product program revitalization of Cadillac, or renaissance if you characterize it like that...that's kind of cued-up at the other divisions, starting at various times over the next few years. I think part of the reason, maybe, that I got put into the job is that we kind of like to have that kind of performance put into the other divisions, in terms of the brands that need to be revitalized on the back of a lot new product in a short period of time. I'm going to try to take lessons learned from the Cadillac experience and apply them there. So I've got to work with the divisional GMs to facilitate that.
What about long-term, future goals?
I think clearly, we've got a super-competitive business that we're in. The US market, good or bad, is entirely open and not every market in the world is like that. And everyone wants to come here and play here in terms of the auto space. So it's not going to get any easier. In the longer term, we really have to carve out, via our product and marketing programs, very distinct identities for each of the GM divisions...and their place in the market. And take advantage of the growth segments, which mainly seem to be in the crossover SUV categories. We want to really work on delivering a very identifiable, strong-identity customer promise. Build the brand over time. Because we can't afford for the current level of incentives to keep escalating.
It hurts everybody.
At some point, it's just not a tenable situation. So we're going to stay aggressive, but we can't continue to ratchet those up all the time.
Monday: Why LaNeve is going to be spending more in radio.
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