GM SALES AND MARKETING CHIEF MARK LANEVE: RUMORS HURTING SALES?

The Wall Street Journal interviewed GM sales and marketing chief Mark LaNeve on January 16. Topic - are rumors hurting GM sales? During the course of the interview Mr. LaNeve made some comments that were quite unnerving:

Cognizant that a recent study shows that almost 75% of Americans wouldn't buy a car from a bankrupt company, Mr. LaNeve envisions salespeople at Nissan and Ford dealerships telling customers they'd be crazy to consider a GM vehicle because the company might not be able to honor its warranty.

"As much as I hate to do this, we're probably going to have to do something proactively on the marketing side just to address that issue," he says. "How you do that, I don't know. It's a tough thing because you really don't want to go there."

Mr. LaNeve just figuring out on January 16, 2006 that they "PROBABLY are going to do something" certainly supports the notion that GM is totally out of touch. More from LaNeve:

In the midst of the seemingly never-ending bad news about his company, Mr. LaNeve says he doesn't want to trumpet a defensive message that is the equivalent of "GM isn't dead yet," but he is struggling to come up with something that will "get America rooting for us again."

"I've always been pretty sanguine about press coverage because I believe you get what you deserve," Mr. LaNeve says. "But when analysts say our problem is we have cars nobody wants, it drives me out of my mind. Do they realize how bad that hurts us?"

If LaNeve believes that you "get what you deserve" in the press he needs to change careers. This interview recalls many of the issues I have with auto marketers and is an indicator of the problems GM will have going forward.

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