Last week, the Wonderbranding blog took GM to task for not effectively marketing to women and not producing cars that women want We have a different view.
Women are an important and influential group to GM. We very deliberately design, develop and produce cars with the quality, safety, technology and fuel efficiency women want and need for their daily lives, their careers, their families and their communities.
Specifically, GM’s female designers have been instrumental in configuring vehicles with features that appeal to women. DuPont Automotive awarded the 2005 Cadillac STS and 2006 Hummer H3 the “Interior of the Year” at their 12th Annual Interiors Show. In those vehicles, movable storage modules and removable rear cargo center as well as third-row 50-50 split-stowable bench seats that fold flat provide easy-to-use cargo space that women desire. The Multi-Flex track gives the rear seat forward and backward mobility so that small children can be pulled up close to the driver. Child seat anchors on all three second-row seats provide additional safety for larger families. Finally, small touches like power adjustable brake and accelerator pedals provide more comfortable, safer vehicle operation for shorter drivers.
GM is also building the highest quality and most dependable vehicles that consumers – and particularly women – desire and expect. In an Initial Quality Study, J.D. Power and Associates praised the Buick LeSabre, Chevrolet Malibu/Malibu Maxx, and Chevrolet Suburban. In its Vehicle Dependability Study, J.D. Power also recognized the Buick LeSabre, Cadillac Escalade EXT, Chevrolet Malibu, and GMC Yukon/Yukon XL.
We are also marketing to women in ways that are important and unique to them. We started by educating our divisions about the women’s market, and we’ve influenced everything from product development, marketing, and dealership environments.
We reach out to women – where they are – with information they need. Women increasingly use the Internet for car shopping, so we created gm.com/women and filled the site with valuable information. The gm.com/women site is an extension of our “Women with Drive” printed guides; both are valuable tools that help women feel comfortable with vehicle purchases, maintenance, service, and safety.
Acknowledging that women trust other women more than any other source of information, we have our key female GM executives talk about their roles in ensuring GM vehicle safety through print and broadcast media. We have also focused our message on features and benefits that solved problems in the daily lives of women rather than on torque and horsepower.
And finally, time-starved women are hungry for a chance to get away from it all – so our dealerships are hosting “ladies night out” events to create a relationship that goes beyond our products. Recently we’ve had dealers host a Bunco party and a Girl Scout Girl Power Clinic; we’ve also hosted many ATHENA events locally with our dealers.
Of course this isn’t the end of the list, rather a glimpse of what’s yet to come as we continue to talk with women, listen to what they want and give them what they need.
