• Ad Age, Business Week’s “Brand New Day”, Monday, July 27, 2009 10:55 AM

Before jetting off on vacation in the Caribbean earlier this month, General Motors marketing chief Bob Lutz met with the automaker's agency brand teams and, according to someone who has knowledge of the short sessions, "crapped all over the advertising."

Cadillac's ads starring Kate Walsh from Modernista were deemed to be too dark and Chevrolet's yet-to-run campaign from Campbell-Ewald was thought to be too lifestyle-focused, Jean Halliday reports. But the most severe criticism was reserved for the Buick LaCrosse "photo shoot" spot featuring effete West Coasters. "That Buick commercial tested very well," Lutz said in a Web cast, "which is not the same as saying that it's an effective ad."

An independent shop, Topolewski, was hired by Leo Burnett to create the Buick ad. Business Week's David Kiley has blogged that as much as Lutz hated the execution, he loved a 1993 effort by creative director Gary Topolewski for the Jeep Grand Cherokee, while he was at Bozell. When CEO Lee Iacocca saw the concept for "Under Snow," Lutz tells Kiley, he ordered it made without pre-testing or consulting the dealers. It was a "really big idea that people found arresting," according to Lutz -- and it didn't even show the product. "Could be Topolewski gets more cracks at some GM business," Kiley concludes. "Lutz owes him one." ;

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