They say good could come from this recession: many of us will learn to focus on value instead of mindless vanity, the financial industry could be reformed, and health care might begin to work. One of the best possible scenarios is that some of the companies who most need to “get it” will.
After reading what the former vice president marketing for General Motors, Mike Jackson, says about the car maker, it’s easy to see why America is choking in a sea of SUVs even though the world is running out of oil. Apparently, the entire company’s decision-making system is deeply flawed.
He dubbed GM as a “PowerPoint culture” and a “bureaucracy of meetings culture.” During his tenure at the automaker, Mr. Jackson said that “there were no meetings where people just sat down, had a discussion and made a decision.”
Mr. Jackson also was critical of GM for putting engineers and finance people with no marketing training in key marketing positions. That means the agency teams often presented their work to executives with less experience and often no experience outside the auto industry, though he added that his former employer has lots of company in this arena across the auto industry.
…If an [ad] agency doesn’t fall in line with the marketer’s demands, the client threatens to move the business…The agencies present work they know will get approved, not cool, risky creative, he said. As a result, ho-hum work is perpetuated.
One of the “five Ps” of marketing is the product itself. It’s no wonder that bad processes were leading to bad products at GM. Let’s hope GM 2.0 wises up.
