• New York Times, Automotive News, Thursday, June 10, 2010 11:15 AM

The memo has gone out: Chevy is out; Chevrolet is in, Richard S. Chang reports.

"We'd ask that whether you're talking to a dealer, reviewing dealer advertising, or speaking with friends and family, that you communicate our brand as Chevrolet moving forward," Alan Batey, vp for Chevrolet sales and service, and Jim Campbell, the G.M. division's vp for marketing, wrote to General Motors employees Tuesday.

It's all in the interest of "consistent" branding of the sort you see at "Coke or Apple," for instance, they say. You'd never see Coca-Cola Co. refer to Coke and Cola-Cola interchangeably in a press release or an ad now, would you? Hmmmm.Double hmmmm. Chang also points out that Apple is not commonly used in reference to the company's products, which are well branded as iPads, iPhones and MacBooks, etc.

And good luck with getting "Chevy" off the tip of the tongue of 'mericans of all ages. "It's a 'Vette, it's a Caddy, it's a Chevy," says Dick Guldstrand, 83, a racer in the Corvette Hall of Fame. "Once it became an American icon, America took it away from G.M."

But maybe the folks at Chevrolet are craftier than the punditocracy gives it credit for. Automotive News' Bill Shea reports that its gift of a $53,000 Chevy Corvette convertible to Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga the day after his perfect game was broken up by a bad call by an umpire was worth $8.9 million in media exposure value. The company drew fire from certain quarters for giving away the 'Vette before it had fully repaid taxpayers for bailing it out of bankruptcy.

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