• by Karl Greenberg , October 2, 2006

General Motors will shift a chunk of its corporate advertising account from McCann Erickson to its Interpublic Group sibling, Deutsch/L.A. Deutsch has been working for GM since early this year, but will grab agency-of-record status in January.

Billings on the assignment were undisclosed, but through the first six months of this year, GM spent more than $100 million on its corporate branding initiatives, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

The change reflects a sense of urgency at the nation's No. 1 automaker. (The company switched Cadillac's agency from Leo Burnett to maverick Boston agency Modernista! this year.) It comes as the company nears the end of a 90-day period to evaluate a three-way alliance with Nissan and Renault.

The agency announcement was made on the day that GM shareholder Kirk Kerkorian, a strong proponent of the alliance, announced plans to buy 12 million more shares of stock in GM--raising his stake to 12 percent or more from the current 9.9 percent.

As for Deutsch, the agency had been Mitsubishi's agency of record for six years, until that struggling automaker threw the account into review in early 2005, and the agency declined to participate. Mitsubishi then hired BBDO as AOR.

GM's Chevrolet division, whose AOR Campbell-Ewald is also an Interpublic agency, has already tapped Deutsch twice this year: first in February for an ad campaign timed with the Daytona 500 and celebrating Chevrolet's prominence in NASCAR, and again in July for a 60-second spot to tout its ongoing sponsorship with Major League Baseball and recalling the division's famous "Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet" ads.

The agency's first corporate work for GM was the recent "Elevate" campaign to announce GM's 100,000 mile/5-year warranty. Similarly, Deutsch's last job for Mitsubishi, in 2004, was an effort to boost the automaker's appeal by touting its warranty and service--a campaign with ads featuring a Mitsubishi Eclipse rolling down roads flanked by thousands of Mitsubishi service reps in red jumpsuits.

Noreen Pratscher, manager, GMNA Regional and Marketing Communications, said Deutsch was chosen as a corporate AOR because of its work on the "Elevate" campaign. "Given our mission to close the quality perception gap between consumer perceptions of our vehicles and how good they really are, we believe Deutsch Los Angeles is a good fit."

GM did not conduct a formal account review, she said, adding that Deutsch's relationship with McCann Erickson was important. "This is one of the advantages of having a partner such as IPG; they have a 'deep bench' in terms of available talent and resources," she said.

While McCann will retain the GM brand retail initiatives work, GM has charged Deutsch with helping to bolster GM's sagging reputation. Beginning next year, GM said, Deutsch will work on touting the company's product quality, alternative fuels initiative, impact on the U.S. economy, and its advances in environmentally friendly manufacture and technology.

Wes Brown, a marketing trends analyst with IceOlogy, Los Angeles, said the move is a sensible one for GM because Deutsch has proven in its work for Mitsubishi, Ikea, and others that it has a knack for giving a brand a younger positioning. Deutsch's iconoclastic ads for Mitsubishi focused as much on new music and urban GenY lifestyles as on the cars themselves.

"What they did for Mitsubishi was memorable," Brown said. "They positioned the brand as hip and trendy--an MTV brand. They are good at communicating brands away from the pack: What makes this brand different?"