Mixed Messages
There seems to be a big disconnect between “New Age Marketing” (see WAW — March '05 pp. 34) and the marketing I see coming from the Big Three and their dealerships at the local level.
Several stories and columns mention rebates as a cause for the Big Three's declining market share, but I wonder if the marketing problem is more than just incentives as I sit reading one of the many local Big Three mailings I receive.
The letter marked “Important: Vehicle Buy Back Notification,” is offering to buy my wife's car to “meet the demand for certain pre-owned vehicles that are in severe shortage in the market.” My wife drives an '87 Mazda 323 with new struts and a partially working air-conditioning system. Only a fool would believe there is a red-hot market for this car.
Why do the Big Three's national magazine and TV ads try to convince me I will be fast, successful and sexy if I buy their new vehicle, but the local ads tell me that I can buy a new car even if I'm mathematically challenged, naive, and unable to get a bank loan for a late-model used car? Who wants to feel “they think I am a loser” even before stepping into the dealership?
Tom Taylor
VP-Marketing
RockAuto.com Auto Parts, LLC
History Lesson
In regards to BMW M GmbH President Ulrich Bruhnke's comments about BMW M founding the performance-vehicle brand in “The Business of Performance” (see WAW — April '05 pp. 42), I'd like to say: don't take too much credit for an idea that has been around for more than 40 years. Chevrolet offered the “SS” package on just about every model it produced during the '60s in much the same way BMW offers its M cars. Mr. Bruhnke's statement seems very pompous and confounding, considering the history of performance cars in the U.S.
Sean Welch
Clawson, MI
They Don't Get It
Although I refer to the “Big Three,” that title continues to mean less and less as the three auto makers continue to ship jobs out of the U.S. and into every third-world country on the globe. And they wonder why they are losing market share? The days of the Big Three living on brand loyalty alone are gone, and it's their fault. Foreign auto makers are building cars and plants (as are their suppliers) in the U.S., and they're creating millions of jobs in the process. They are creating the brand loyalty the Big Three are destroying.
I've only owned Big Three brand vehicles for 40 years, but if I buy a new vehicle again, it will NOT be from the Big Three. They don't care about my job, and I don't care about their cars. I'm betting there are millions of Americans who feel the same. The executives in Detroit don't care how they make a profit today, or apparently, what it does to tomorrow's prospects for making a profit — short-term strategies will not generate long-term returns.
While the Big Three watch their market share and stock values go down the toilet, they might do well to remember how they got to be so dominant in the auto industry. It may be too late for them to recover. American consumers can be fiercely loyal and quietly defiant. They also can help the auto makers recover, if they are given a reason to care.
Dave Dalton
Owensboro, KY
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