• The Wall Street Journal , Tuesday, September 9, 2008 11 AM

General Motors has problems on many fronts but the G8 -- a powerful sedan that is supposed to re-energize the Pontiac brand -- illustrates one problem that's often overlooked: The automaker's lineup contains many vehicles that deliver little bang for the buck. A few months ago, GM flooded the airwaves with commercials introducing the G8, but the ad blitz hasn't had much impact. In August, GM's 2,712 U.S. Pontiac dealers sold only 1,915 G8s.

Mark LaNeve, GM's top marketing executive in North America, says the additional costs of offering slower-selling models are "really very incremental" because most share parts with higher-volume models. But auto analysts say slow sellers are a bigger drag on profit that GM acknowledges.

GM's trouble with slow-selling models is closely related to another problem: weak brands. Pontiac, Buick, Saturn and Saab are such small players in the U.S. market that whole swaths of car shoppers don't even consider them. Kia Motors, the Korean maker that specializes in low-priced cars, outsold each of those four brands in the U.S. market in August.

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