• by Karl Greenberg , May 21, 2008

General Motors' OnStar division has begun advertising OnStar--well, Chevrolet Malibu and OnStar--and its Turn-by-Turn navigation feature on US Airways. The campaign, which runs through July, uses seatback trays as billboards to tout the feature with ads that suggest OnStar is like a co-pilot. The media deal was brokered by New York-based Brand Connections for Sky Media. 

One of the ads shows the Malibu from inside looking out as if one were the pilot. Another features a beauty shot of Malibu, and the third is a caricature of the OnStar Turn-By-Turn operational flow chart: push, tell, listen and arrive.

OnStar marketing director Andy Young said Malibu was chosen for the effort because it's new, and also because it was important to get across that OnStar and its portfolio of applications is not only for GM's premium vehicles but for mass-market cars, specifically as a competitive edge versus vehicles like Honda Accord and Toyota Camry.

"You can't get OnStar by going into the store and buying it, so it makes a whole lot of sense to take the equity of the OnStar brand and ensure people associate it with GM vehicles," he says. "Going all the way back to OnStar's early days, consumers thought they could only get OnStar on more expensive vehicles, so it's been a big effort with us and with GM's [mass market] divisions to make sure customers know they can get OnStar in any range of vehicles."

He says the division is also currently running TV spots--also featuring Malibu--that tout the vehicle's OnStar Automatic Crash Response program.

OnStar last month launched two enhancements to OnStar Turn-by-Turn Navigation. One--eNav, a partnership with MapQuest.com--will let subscribers with Turn-by-Turn Navigation-capable vehicle find a destination on a computer, at MapQuest, and then have that destination sent to their vehicle's OnStar system. Route guidance to the destination can then be accessed via voice command.