• What Comfortable Will Get You

    Posted on August 31st, 2006 by and currently 3 commenting.

    The boys and girls over at Brandweek report that TV ad spending for ‘06 is up 7.4%. Is anyone really surprised?

    Nope.

    But there’s an interesting quote in the piece from Wes Brown – an analyst with Iceology, Los Angeles – about the GM and Ford spends (which have been pretty steady):

    “There’s been lots of rhetoric, but they still like to spend where they’re comfortable…’

    And therein lies the problem. Would somebody please tell me how any company became successful by being comfortable? How any really hard work was accomplished while keeping comfortable?

    Comfortable means content. And content means stale. And stale means you will most definitely fall behind. Yes, Ford and GM have been comfortable for a very long time. And look where they are now. So what do they do? They talk about “changing everything” and instead come out with new ad campaigns (not movements) and start the (read: downward) cycle all over again. Oh, I’m sure they’re very comfortable with it.

    (Sigh.)

  • http://thebrandbuilder.blogspot.com olivier blanchard

    “You can lead a horse to water… but you can’t make him a duck.”

    – Bruce Willis (I think.)

    Ford and GM are such HUGE companies that you can’t really foster real change overnight. (Unless they’re willing to clean house on an almost Biblical scale.) Bureaucracies, stale “leadership,” cultural limitations… so many things get in the way of change that it’s hard to get anything done. One step at a time. I’m seeing progress, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for a little while… But you make a good point.

  • http://johnbell.typepad.com John Bell

    The product is stale (mid-tier car design is so inbred right now) and the marketing not much better. The best marketing thing I saw all year was when GM test drove Skys at BlogHer. There is a mention of internet-only advertising for the Pontiac G5 (another undifferentiated box on wheels)on Random Culture
    http://www.randomculture.com/random_culture/2006/08/say_hello_to_in.html

  • http://brainsonfire.com Spike

    Good point, John. GM is sticking their toes in the water here and there. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next.