• Automotive News, Tuesday, June 27, 2006 12:45 PM

If automakers want to succeed, their marketing messages need to be consistent. That's the "easier said than done" solution delivered by Paul Ballew, General Motors' executive director of global market and industry analysis, at a recent marketing conference. Consistency of brand message is the key to effective auto advertising, he argued--and is more critical than ever before in today's fractured media environment. However, his own company is guilty of not heeding his words. GM, which spent $2.76 billion last year to advertise in U.S. media, repeatedly has shifted the ad themes of several brands in the past few years. For example, Buick, Saturn, and Pontiac each have had four ad tag lines since 2001, while Saab has had three since then. Ballew is not alone in his assessment of what ails U.S. auto advertising. "If people keep changing tags, they are searching for an identity because clearly they have none," says Charlie Hughes, an automotive consultant in Newport Beach, Calif. But Hughes says he disagrees with Ballew that consistency is crucial to a successful advertising strategy. "It's not just consistency, because you could be saying the wrong thing consistently," Hughes says. Instead, he argues, auto advertisers need messages that "mean something" and are linked to the brand. "Every dollar you spend on communications ought to let the world know exactly what you stand for," he says. "If you stand for nothing, every dollar you spend tells the world exactly that."

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