Mark LaNeve, GM's new VP/Marketing and Advertising speaks
GM's new VP/Marketing and Advertising Mark LaNeve, spoke to RBR and 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 here to subscribe and get the issues 703-719-9500). This is the second in a series that began Friday.
We hear GM is working on the upcoming hybrid lines, which will be much higher-powered than what's out there today.
That's the whole thing with the hybrid technology-you can add additional power to the wheels via the technology. So once it harnessed right (we've got some terrifically smart people working on this), it is a terrific technology if you can engineer it that way, plus get the cost right. The biggest issue now is we know we can engineer it, but we need to replicate it and get the cost down to a level the customers are comfortable with.
Any unique philosophy or mindset you've espoused for tackling this new position?
I don't know if it's a philosophy, but I really believe that the brand-building in the future is primarily about the product, but in terms of marketing, it's going to be a lot more segmented, fractious. It's almost like you're going to build your brand customer by customer. And I think the new and emerging technologies enable that much more than in the past. In other words, the whole marketing model of, "You produce your vehicle, you do 30 second television ads, you do a little bit of magazine and then you ship to a dealer," I think that model is going to disappear. And I really believe that things are going to happen much more simultaneously; that customers are going to acquire their information by opting in; that the traditional medias will always have a role, but less of a major role. We're going to look at new technologies that we're just starting to experiment with; more print, more radio as opposed to heavy, heavy weight on television. This will really start to take effect, and the retail experience needs to be a branded experience. And in our space, many people are moving that way. And it needs to link right back to the brand promise.
So I think those are going to be the major things that we're going to have to wrestle down. We've got a lot of smart people that think similarly and that are working on it. I don't think it's going to happen overnight, I think it's going to happen gradually. It's already happening.
You mentioned more radio. Tell us why.
I haven't thought it through completely, Carl, but I think that as the products continue to improve (you and I have talked about we have a quality perception deficit right now in the market), but our real quality is better, like in the case of Cadillac, than the European. Although the customer perception is not there. So all cars right now are fairly safe, have fairly good performance, have good quality. The quality differences are pretty minute. So you've got design as a differentiator-the way the car is holistically engineered. So the differences are finer, and it's tough to explain those on a :30 second television ad. Other ways you do it is opting in through video for people to get more information via the web or radio-you can get on a :60 radio ad and pretty efficiently explain differences.
What you guys are probably playing with in your industry is how are people going to be experiencing radio in the future. You have your traditional means-sitting in your car, or out by the pool. But they're going to be getting radio via the Internet and other means too.
We talk more with LaNeve in tomorrow's RBR and TVBR daily Epapers.
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