Analog
Lifer
The biggest, most unpredictable challenge before Detroit?s automakers is changing the perception that their cars and trucks are second best, even if they increasingly may not be.
General Motors Corp. is closing the quality gap with industry leader Toyota Motor Co.p. and launching some of the finest products GM has ever built, but you don?t see it in GM?s 2003 market share slide after two years of gains or in the industry-leading incentives the automaker is heaping on most of its lineup.
Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG?s Chrysler Group are improving their manufacturing productivity at a faster rate than rivals Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., upping the pace of their planned product introductions and, in Ford?s case, boosting capital spending on cars and trucks.
But even Ford CEO Bill Ford Jr. and Chrysler CEO Dieter Zetsche acknowledge their companies have lots of work to do to close the elusive ? and expensive ? perception gap, to demonstrate that the quality, durability and resale value of their cars and trucks are comparable to the foreign-owned competition.
?To move all those facts, to close the gap is very tough,? Zetsche told me Tuesday at the North American International Auto Show. ?By 2007, we want to be perceived ? perceived ? as the product leaders in the volume segment. We are very confident we will close all those gaps. The perception gap, the image issue, is at least as big.?
The problem is so big that Chrysler is mulling whether to ?play the DaimlerChrysler card,? Zetsche said. That would mean launching a communications and marketing strategy designed to say today?s Chrysler is not the old Chrysler Corp. of Detroit, but a vital part of a global automotive giant backed by the resources of Germany?s largest industrial company and the technical know-how of Mercedes-Benz.
It?s a potentially risky move for a company whose namesake brand image ? Chrysler ? remains somewhat vague. The campaign could make Chrysler look more uppity than it has reason to be, alienate Chrysler die-hards and, even worse, fall flat if such a pledge isn?t backed by the quality, durability and refinement it promises.
It also could work. Perceptions in the auto industry can, indeed, be changed, witness the reputational resurrections of Audi, Nissan and South Korea?s Hyundai and Kia. But such transformations typically take a decade, requiring consistency, execution, discipline, patience and stability ? traits more typically associated with Toyota than GM, Ford or Wall Street.
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General Motors Corp. is closing the quality gap with industry leader Toyota Motor Co.p. and launching some of the finest products GM has ever built, but you don?t see it in GM?s 2003 market share slide after two years of gains or in the industry-leading incentives the automaker is heaping on most of its lineup.
Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG?s Chrysler Group are improving their manufacturing productivity at a faster rate than rivals Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., upping the pace of their planned product introductions and, in Ford?s case, boosting capital spending on cars and trucks.
But even Ford CEO Bill Ford Jr. and Chrysler CEO Dieter Zetsche acknowledge their companies have lots of work to do to close the elusive ? and expensive ? perception gap, to demonstrate that the quality, durability and resale value of their cars and trucks are comparable to the foreign-owned competition.
?To move all those facts, to close the gap is very tough,? Zetsche told me Tuesday at the North American International Auto Show. ?By 2007, we want to be perceived ? perceived ? as the product leaders in the volume segment. We are very confident we will close all those gaps. The perception gap, the image issue, is at least as big.?
The problem is so big that Chrysler is mulling whether to ?play the DaimlerChrysler card,? Zetsche said. That would mean launching a communications and marketing strategy designed to say today?s Chrysler is not the old Chrysler Corp. of Detroit, but a vital part of a global automotive giant backed by the resources of Germany?s largest industrial company and the technical know-how of Mercedes-Benz.
It?s a potentially risky move for a company whose namesake brand image ? Chrysler ? remains somewhat vague. The campaign could make Chrysler look more uppity than it has reason to be, alienate Chrysler die-hards and, even worse, fall flat if such a pledge isn?t backed by the quality, durability and refinement it promises.
It also could work. Perceptions in the auto industry can, indeed, be changed, witness the reputational resurrections of Audi, Nissan and South Korea?s Hyundai and Kia. But such transformations typically take a decade, requiring consistency, execution, discipline, patience and stability ? traits more typically associated with Toyota than GM, Ford or Wall Street.
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