You have to have a portfolio."Ĭhevrolets are being marketed to entry-level car buyers, particularly in Eastern and Central Europe. Opels and Vauxhalls are for middle-market consumers with a "progressive" take on new technology, Browning said. Cadillacs have proved popular with wealthy buyers in Russia. Hummers are for, well, people who like Hummers. The increase in international sales helped GM retain its position as the world's largest automaker last year, narrowly fending off a challenge from Toyota. Though January was a surprisingly good month for GM in North America, like other U.S. automakers it has been struggling for years in the domestic market. But in Europe, GM's sales rose 9 percent, to 2.2 million vehicles, last year.
In Asia, sales were up 15 percent, to nearly 1.5 million cars. One of GM's fastest-growing markets has been the Middle East, where its brand lineup includes GMC trucks, a name that is not widely available outside North America. GMC's sales in the region have risen sixfold since 1999, to more than 30,000 vehicles. One of the agencies working for GM, Leo Burnett, has been advertising the GMC Yukon sport utility vehicle with spots featuring a pair of curious robots, who explore the truck's features. The robots eventually learn to treat the vehicle with "respect," the tagline of the campaign. "It's a message that resonates well with their target audience," said Tom Bernardin, chief executive of Leo Burnett Worldwide. GM is aiming the Yukon at well-to-do consumers in the Middle East. In the less affluent countries of Eastern Europe, the Chevrolet brand has shown strong growth. GM sold more than 450,000 Chevrolets in the region last year, only a few years after the brand was introduced.Īt a time when some U.S. marketers are playing down their origins abroad, General Motors has been promoting Chevrolet in Europe with a bit of Americana. In a campaign last year called the Chevrolet Dream Garage, the automaker asked consumers in 11 European markets to send in a card with their choices of three Chevy models they might like to own. A half-million of the respondents were sent a compact disc with 16 pop songs containing the name "Chevrolet" in the lyrics. Never mind that many of the Chevys sold in Europe are a far cry from the ones Don McLean drove to the levee in the song "American Pie." They are a lot smaller, for one.
And many of them are built by GM DAT, a South Korea-based business that GM took over when it bought control of Daewoo Motor in 2001.
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