Do you think that GM should change its name to something else?

June 15, 2009 – 11:25 am – No Comment

There have been several companies that have changed their names after coming under fire and falling into bankruptcy. Some of the companies that have done that include ValuJet or now known as AirTran, Altria or as you may have once known it, Philip Morris, and Xe, which was once known as Blackwater. Even electronics maker LG has changed its name from Lucky Goldstar to just LG and said that it stood for “Life’s Good” and now it’s doing very well with its sales of consumer electronics and appliances.

These companies have done well with the name change; it is as if they are shedding what they once were and becoming a new company with a shiny, squeaky clean image.

Marketing professionals across the country agree that the rebranding of GM could be a good thing. “If the goal is to try and put this company on a massive diet and just turn it into a smaller car manufacturing operation, I’m not sure there’d be that much harm in rebranding,” said Jean-Pierre Dube, a University of Chicago marketing professor. “The brand isn’t in good shape,” he said, “so they have little to lose.”

The General Motors brand has already become a tarnished brand, with a reputation of building poor quality cars and now with a huge bankruptcy filing under its belt, not to mention what everyone thinks about the company taking all that federal money to keep from having to file for the huge bailout…which they filed anyway.

Of course, right now many GM officials are sticking to their guns and not wanting to rebrand the company. CEO Fritz Henderson said that rebranding wasn’t very high on his list of things to do in the company. Which is possibly a good thing to do considering all the troubles he inherited, but couldn’t rebranding be handed off to the marketing department? After all, GM still has one of those and it really doesn’t have the money to be throwing into high-cost tv spots right now.

Bits and pieces of GM have already begun to be rebranded; GMAC financial services has changed its name to Ally Bank and General Motors Asset Managemnet is now known as Promark Global Advisors.

But, with a company that is as well known as GM could it work?

I don’t see anything wrong with trying to perhaps market the company differently than before, but an entire new brand could be tricky to pull off for the company. I think that the best implementation of rebranding could come from if it were to rebrand some of its subsidiaries such as Chevy or Cadillac.