• Bloomberg, Friday, May 14, 2010 10:16 AM

When General Motors' chairman Ed Whitacre told Americans in a TV ad a few weeks ago that the company had repaid loans it received from the government, at least three Republican lawmakers expressed their dismay that GM was repaying the debt with cash raised from the U.S. Treasury's acquisition of 61% of the company, David Welch reports. But a survey shows that the ad resonated with many consumers and has helped to repair the automaker's image.

YouGov, a London company that measures public perception of businesses, surveys 5,000 people daily and combines positive and negative reactions to create an index between 100 and -100. GM's positive rating rose to 17 from 12 on YouGov's BrandIndex, which the pollster's managing director calls a "statistically significant" increase. "This could buy GM some goodwill," says Ted Marzilli.

GM has a way to go to catch up with rival Ford, however, whose current score is 36. "They are working against the perception that they are Government Motors," points out Jim Hall, principal of 2953 Analytics. "GM is still in the marketing mode of overpromising and underdelivering."

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