GM shows tremedous class with Thanksgiving day commercial.

[Harold Mansfield]

I don't know if you guys say this yesterday. It ran on the NFL Network during the Jets/Cincinnati game.

Out of all of the companies that received BILLIONS of tax payer dollars in bail out and T.A.R.P funds and then went on business as usual with executive bonuses and foreclosures...
General Motors is the only one with enough class to appreciate the help and thank the American people.

YouTube - GM Thanksgiving Commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0prZNvTzm6o&feature=player_embedded)

[greenoak]

also THAT SOUNDS LIKE A REAL SMART IDEA.... we are all lin this together...

[vangogh]

I saw the beginning of that commercial, but never did see the end. I think someone walked in and started talking to me. That is a good thing for GM to do. I'm sure there's a mix of brand building and genuine thanks in there, but in both cases it's the right thing to do. I wonder if Chrysler will do something similar and I wonder how many will remember that Ford didn't take any money at all.

[Harold Mansfield]

If anyone should have put out such a message, it should have been Bank Of America, Citi and A.I.G. They all have a really bad public perception since the bail out.

[vangogh]

Yet I doubt any of them will ever say thanks for the money we all gave them.

[Steve B]

I really liked the spot also. However, the cynic in me was curious how much those spots cost?

Hopefully, they'll really thank us with some quality cars that will compete in the market place.

[KristineS]

It's definitely good marketing. I give them credit for doing it that way instead of going into a whole diatribe about an American company and loving America and all that stuff. Whoever does their advertising did a nice job.

And, yes, I'm sure it wasn't cheap, but advertising helps sell more cars and so does public perception.

[Harold Mansfield]

However, the cynic in me was curious how much those spots cost?


GM has a healthy nationwide, and international advertising budget and has for the better part of 50 years.
I don't think this cost any more or less than any of the other 20 commercials that they run 7 days a week. The time is already paid for, it's just a matter of switching out one spot for another.

[vangogh]

The cost of the advertising also pales in comparison to the amount of money they needed. And remember the money the U.S. lent them was to make sure they could keep going because of all the people they employ and what the impact to the economy would have been had they filed for bankruptcy. We lent them money so they would be able to afford to spend money on advertising that presumably helps them sell more cars.

You may or may not agree with the reasons for lending them money, but accepting that we did it's hard to argue that they shouldn't be allowed to use that money.

[Harold Mansfield]

I remember the A.I.G flack about how they gave out some really high bonuses to their executives just after receiving Gov bail out funds, and immediately had another expensive executive retreat.
I was outraged. I thought that it was not only ridiculous to pay bonuses to executives of a company on the brink of extinction...usually bonuses are for performance, but insensitive to host an expensive retreat right after crying broke.
And then 6 months later they turned around and asked for more money.

To me that was an arrogant slap in the face to us all.

[Steve B]

I think it was O.K. for them to do it, but it reminded me of when I was a little kid and asked my Mom for money so I could buy her a Christmas present. Hopefully, it will create a bunch of good will and they will sell a lot more cars as a result.

[vangogh]

I can understand the memory, though I'm not sure it's really the same thing. The U.S. gave GM and Chrysler money to keep both companies from having to file for bankruptcy and to help them continue to stay in business. I know it's easy to then think the companies shouldn't be spending money, but the reality is they still need to spend money to continue business.

With AIG I agree with Harold. They spent the money on things that really weren't helping in the continuation of business. The retreat was ridiculous. I'm sure they can come up with some business justification for it, but it seems more like an expensive vacation. The bonuses too could be argued in a business sense where if you don't give them you potentially lose key members of the company. However given how poorly those supposedly key members had performed it's hard to see why it was so important to keep them.

What AIG did came across like stealing money from U.S. taxpayers. What GM and Chrysler did came across in a completely different way. More like getting a big loan from the U.S. taxpayers at very good rates.

[Harold Mansfield]

Funny, now that I think about it, outside of the Jeep Grand Cherokee , I can't remember the last time I saw a Chrysler ad on T.V., but I can name at least 5 or 6 new cars that I have seen GM advertise recently.

[vangogh]

I know. Chrysler has seemed like the most irrelevant of the big 3 for quite some time. I think the lack of commercials is because you see more for the individual vehicle brands. There are plenty of commercials, for Jeep, Dodge, and Ram trucks. Both Ford and GM seem to do a better job of also showing the company brand along with the vehicle brand.

[Spider]

I think it's very interesting at the influence the CEO has on their respective organizations.

In "Jack- Straight from the Gut!" Jack Welch described in detail the selection process for his replacement at GE. The three contenders were Jeff Immelt, James McNerny and Bob Nardelli. With the remarkable success Welch had, you'd think that these three chosen ones would be super champs.

Well, Immelt became GE CEO after Jack Welch and GE has lumbered along without maintaining the Welch momentum. I believe there has been a major falling out between Welch and Immelt so that Welch resigned as Chairman. GE now seems to have returned to its pre-Welch stance as a lumbering giant.

Bob Nardelli left GE to become CEO of Home Depot and anyone who looks after their own house knows what a mess HD became after Nardelli took the reigns. He was fired and moved on to CEO Chrysler. I'm not in the least surprised that Chrysler can't get its act together.

The only one of the three who seems to have done any good is Jim McNerny who left GE to become CEO of 3M. He seems to have done well there and is now CEO at Boeing a company that is still selling airplanes and stuff at a fair clip even in these economic times.

At GM, Rick waggoner started at the bottom and worked his way up, but screwed up royally at the top. Under his tenure as CEO GM lost 90percent of its share price. After 4 or 5 CEOs in the past two years, GM CEO is now Dan Akerson, who performed miracles at Nextel a few years ago. Let's hope he can work the same magic at GM.

Ford's present CEO is Alan Mulally, who joined Boeing straight out of college, did wonderful things there but was passed over for CEO and went to Ford as their CEO and President in 2006. Ford did not take a government baillout or suffer a forced bankruptcy in 2008 and made a $2.7 billion profit in 2009.

Thought you'd like this little history revolving - as so much does in America - around the car and aerospace industries.