Q: Why has that Malibu ad resonated with consumers?
A: I think part of it is the campaign. It came into market when we were nine months into the campaign. We're seeing the campaign effect now that we're two years in. Our breakthrough measures -- which are a matter of do people remember it, and they do, they know it's from Chevy -- continue to increase month after month. It really hit when we were starting to hit our stride.
What is the most difficult part of advertising tech features?
I think the goal is trying to articulate the consumer benefit. At its worst, technology can be very complicated and cumbersome. At its best, it can really simplify consumers' lives. If you can clearly find a way to articulate the benefit in a way that people can appreciate it, then we've done our job.
The beauty of our "Real People, Not Actors" campaign is we've been able to leverage real people to really tell that benefit story through their own words, through their own experiences.
You saw that in the Malibu ad with both the teen driver technology and Apple CarPlay technology. Consumers were reacting and really expressing how that could help them in their automotive experience.
With Buick's "That's not a Buick" idea and Chevy's focus-group campaign, General Motors has been consistent with its advertising themes. Why is it important to maintain a theme over a long period?
If you take a look at the advertising marketplace out there, there's an increasing amount of clutter. It poses a challenge to marketers, an increasing challenge to break through, reach consumers, have them remember the communication, and remember who it's coming from and to ultimately drive some sort of intention.
The value of a campaign, now that we're two years into it, is that people are familiar with the tenets of the campaign. They've become more familiar with the ingredients such as this whole idea of doing experiments with real people. Ultimately, they become more familiar with the brand. As we continue with the advertising under the campaign umbrella, the ability to break through and drive opinion, which is ultimately our goal, increases. If we were to change the structure of the communications every month, as an example, we'd basically be starting from square one.