General Motors has announced that it will shift its advertising focus in 2008 from pickup trucks and large SUVs to cars and small SUVs. The shift in focus is to better promote the Detroit automaker’s fuel economy and eco-friendliness. GM will also continue to shift its advertising resources from traditional media outlets to digital sources.
GM still feels there is a strong market for its full-size light-duty pickups, but wants to build on the momentum of the recent launches of the Chevrolet Malibu, Saturn Vue and Astra and Cadillac CTS. “We’re going to defend (full-sized trucks), but at the same time we’re fully cognizant of the fact that we need to grow our passenger car business and our small utility business, and we’ll have a big emphasis on that this year,†Mark LaNeve, GM’s vice president of North American vehicle sales, service and marketing, told Automotive News.
GM is planning to boost its retail share in 2008 by reducing fleet sales and more controlled incentives spending. 2007 figures have yet to be tallied, but GM had a 22.5% share of the retail market in 2006 — 24.3% including fleet sales. GM ended 2007 with about a 100,000 unit decrease in fleet sales.
