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Tag: General Motors

  • Facebook Ads: General Motors Wants to Do Business Again

    Facebook ads don’t work, General Motors boldly proclaimed days before the social networking site’s much-heralded IPO. The car manufacturer’s declaration, coupled with their decision to end their advertising campaign, is thought by many to have played a role in Facebook’s poor stock market performance. Now, about a month-and-a-half after GM decided these ads weren’t worth the money, the company is headed back to the site for another round.

    According to anonymous sources close to the deal, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg is currently in talks with Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson about restarting GM’s campaign. These nameless individuals have also stated that the one key element crucial to sealing the deal is, of course, a proper return on investment.

    Business Insider is reporting that one of the other factors luring General Motors back onto Facebook is the use of third-party data to target users and their interests. Until now, the company had prevented its advertisers from using such information to properly adjust their campaigns. Now, it would seem, Facebook is having a change of heart.

    In 2011, General Motors spent an estimated $1.8 billion on advertising, $10 million of which apparently went to Facebook’s bank account. However, after pouring over advertising data, the company has decided they would like to cut such expenses by $2 billion over the next five years. In an effort to get these ventures under control, GM will temper their campaign by opting out of such expensive events as the Super Bowl. Instead, the company will explore cheaper options, says General Motors chief marketing officer Joel Ewanick.

    Since none of this has been officially confirmed with either General Motors or Facebook, both companies have refused to comment on the situation as of this writing.

  • GM Could Return To The Facebook Ad Fray [Report]

    Just days before the big Facebook IPO, the company was hit with a rather embarrassing blow from another well-known American company. General Motors announced that they were yanking all of their paid ads from Facebook, saying that they weren’t sure about their effectiveness and how they fit into future marketing strategies.

    Read: Facebook ads don’t really work and we’re getting the hell out.

    That’s the takeaway that many took from the move, and it promoted an intensification of a long-standing conversation about Facebook’s monetization strategy.

    A few days later, we learned that the big ad pull may have been a more innocuous than previously thought. We learned that GM was making big advertising decisions apart from how they marketed on Facebook (like sitting out the Super Bowl next year). We also heard that Facebook even encouraged GM to utilize the free promotion that comes from promoting a page and content on their site.

    No hard feelings, then. Right? GM insisted that the big pull right before the IPO was purely coincidental. A Ford exec tweeted that Facebook ads were effective, and it’s actually just about content, innovation, and execution. Amidst the arguing over the efficacy of Facebook ads, Facebook itself was suffering a pretty rotten couple of weeks on the market and thinking about new strategies to marketing their platform as a premier place to buy ad space.

    A day before the IPO a marketing analyst for Gartner told us that, “Facebook very frequently updates its formats and releases new products, so it will have another chance to pitch to GM.”

    And according to The Wall Street Journal, that’s exactly what’s happening right now. They say that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has spoken to GM CEO Daniel Akerson about the automaker coming back to big blue.

    Also, from the WSJ:

    [GM Global Marketing Chief Joel] Ewanick and Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s global sales head, met for the first time since the blowup at a June event in Cannes, France, a person familiar with the meeting said. Ms. Everson said Facebook is willing to provide GM with better data on how their ads can turn into dollars, as it has agreed to do with other advertisers, this person said. Facebook won’t provide any special treatment for GM, however.

    Sources said that GM is waiting for Facebook to prove its effectiveness.

    In the end, the $10 million the GM spent on Facebook advertising was minuscule – both to GM and Facebook, really. But, as a vote of confidence in the ability of Facebook ads to be effective, GM’s return would be good news for Facebook.

  • Chevy Cruze Recall: Nearly Half a Million Cars are Affected

    The Chevy Cruze recall affects more than half-a-million cars manufactured at General Motors’ Lordstown, Ohio plant between 2010 and this past May. According to Forbes, nearly 30 engine fires have been reported, all of which stem from automobiles built in Lordstown. No injuries have been reported as a result of these issues.

    The recall covers 413,418 cars sold in the United States, with another estimated 60,000 coming out of Canada. Instructions are being sent out of owners presently, and should arrive in mailboxes around July 11. Additionally, GM has issued a recall for another 53,000 Chevy Cruzes, one that concerns missing welds on gas tanks. Considering that the company is hoping the Cruze will help them establish dominance in the small car market, this recall couldn’t have reared its ugly head at a more inopportune moment.

    In order to correct the fiery engine problem, an adjusted to the engine shield must be made in order to prevent any combustable liquids from becoming trapped in the compartment. If you’re curious to see what a burning Chevy Cruze looks like, take a peek at the video embedded below. The clip comes courtesy of Jalopnik.com.

    Presently, it’s thought that cars manufactured outside of North America are safe and sound.

  • GM Gets Dissed by Facebook, But Ford is Buying

    GM Gets Dissed by Facebook, But Ford is Buying

    You might recall that General Motors recently pulled all their advertising from Facebook’s pages and claimed that the ads weren’t really working for them. Of course, GM’s actions took place just days before Facebook’s much anticipated initial public offering, so it really grabbed everybody’s attention.

    Today, The Street published an article claiming that Facebook had indeed dissed General Motors by not allowing them to take over whole pages with their marketing efforts. As Ad Age put, advertising on Facebook has always been subtle, which apparently wasn’t working for the Detroit auto giant who insisted it must positioned in a more prominent light.

    But it is no secret that Facebook isn’t all about just merely positioning products to please advertisers. Their number one responsibility seems to be to their users and they are very conscious about making display decision which might turn their users off. So it’s a moral stand which Facebook made against GM, at least in the opinion of Ad Age and the Street.

    Regardless of who did what or who refused to budge, Ford Motors, one of the first to take advantage of Facebook’s pricey logout ads, seems to be loving the advertising space on the site. In fact, Ford is offering a whole new line of Blue Oval-branded products which will be featured on Facebook.

    Users who visit Ford’s fan page or several other related automotive places will see Ford t-shirts, toy cars, and select other merchandise featured on the right lower side of their wall. So while this format does not agree with GM, Ford is taking a more progressive stance, and making the best possible use of the product positioning opportunities.

    The overarching theme from both, the Street and Ad Age is that GM is still entrenched in an old model of marketing (and perhaps way of conducting business overall) while Facebook is attempting to promote and advance a more user-centric way of advertising and brand promotion.

    Ford is also embracing this spirit. They too have abandoned outdated company-originated development practices in favor of more opensource-oriented innovation efforts. They are doing their best to get community and fans alike involved in propelling the company forward and maintaing a competitive advantage.

  • GM’s Pulling of Ads from Facebook Wasn’t Personal After All

    Told ya! Following a Reuters report earlier today that revealed Facebook had actually encouraged General Motors to utilize the website’s free pages, thus lessening the import of GM’s announcement from earlier this week about no longer paying for Facebook ads. Now, someone from the Wall Street Journal has revealed that GM won’t be advertising at the next Super Bowl, either.

    Suzanne Vranica, an advertising and marketing reporter at the Journal, tweeted the news:

    VranicaWSJ
    @VranicaWSJ     WSJ :GM to sits out Super Bowl w/@sharonterlep
    1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    According to the accompanying report, GM’s global marketing chief, Joel Ewanick, the same guy on Tuesday that said paid ads on Facebook don’t work (in so many words), has concluded that buying ads during the Super Bowl is too expensive to justify the cost.

    Given that GM’s the third largest advertiser during Super Bowls, today’s decision helps defuse any of the controversy that got blown up after the company decided it would no longer pay for ads on Facebook (GM’s still dedicating $30 million to using Facebook’s free services).

    All of this advertising reshuffling by GM is due to the company’s effort to optimize its advertising strategy and get the most out of its ad budget. And while this Facebook/GM story is starting to sound like it’s going to go out with a whimper, GM’s timing to announce its withdrawal from paid Facebook ads only a few days before Facebook’s IPO remains a little suspect.

  • The Facebook/GM Ado Very Well Might Have Been About Nothing

    According to a report in Reuters today, General Motors’ decision to pull its paid advertising from Facebook was preceded by the social network trying to pitch the value of its free pages in the first place.

    On Tuesday, GM announced that it would be pulling the $10 million it spends on paid ads on Facebook because, as the automotive manufacturer said, the ads just didn’t work. It wasn’t the decision that conjured up the controversy so much as it was the reasoning behind the decision, especially given that GM announced the decision mere days before Facebook’s vaunted IPO (which is happening today).

    While GM says the timing wasn’t coordinated, its decision to cease paying for ads on Facebook ignited a storm of scrutiny over whether Facebook ads were even worth a damn. The report from Reuters today, though, seems to nullify any of that scrutiny – at least in the respect to this specific incidence – if in fact Facebook was trying to sell GM on the value of free brand pages.

    An undisclosed source told Reuters that Facebook’s effort to pitch the free brand pages “backfires on them in a funny way,” although the only backdraft that seems apparent might be artificial.

    Consider this formula: Facebook emphasizes the value of free brand pages, so then GM decides to stop paying for ads but says its going to maintain its Facebook page and just focus on the freely available content.

    How is that controversial?

    The true and perhaps only story in this saga then gets narrowed down to the fact that GM, although it was advised by Facebook to focus on the free pages, said that the website’s paid ads didn’t work. The pronouncement now appears to be a little more underhanded than originally perceived.

    A source of Reuters said of GM, “”They’re just going to try not doing it for a while and see how it goes; just make content and if it works, it works.”

    So now, if GM’s merely doing what Facebook advised it to do in the first place, where’s the controversy in this whole non-drama?

  • More Arguments That Facebook Ads Are Shoddy (or Not)

    Look at what you did, General Motors. You pulled a measly amount of money (relatively speaking) from Facebook’s pocketbook and said it was because you don’t think Facebook’s ads do what they’re supposed to do. Now it’s a great big, steamy pile-on for everybody’s favorite website.

    Actually, that’s not exactly true. The reports coming out this week pointing out why ads on Facebook aren’t really that great have been in the works for a while, but it is monumentally bad timing for Facebook since that IPO of theirs is presumably set to crack off tomorrow. However, GM’s announcement, while having hardly any effect on Facebook’s overall value, (inadvertently?) caused a laser fury of scrutiny over the quality of performance of Facebook ads.

    Although tons of people can’t get enough Facebook action, many of them aren’t paying attention to any of those pesky ads hanging off to the side. In the same Greenlight report that revealed a Facebook search engine could be a formidable challenge to Google’s search dominance, a different metric shows that most people really pay no mind to ads on Facebook.

    When asked, “Do you click on advertisements or sponsored listings in Facebook?” an obstinate 44% said they never click on them. More, another 31% said they rarely click on Facebook ads. A middling 3% said they click them regularly and 10% said they often click the ads (13% haven’t gotten the memo to sign-up for Facebook).

    Curiously enough, Greenlight points out in the report that it’s enjoyed some success with Facebook ads. “We saw our Facebook investment (client media spend) overtake both Yahoo and Bing collectively at the start of 2011, hinting the channel had constant growth and was delivering a strong enough return to invest more,” the authors wrote.

    So… these ads are engaging at least some people out there in Facebooklands, right? Aside from the obvious finding that as many as 13% click the ads regularly, Greenlight isn’t the only company to admit that advertising on Facebook works for them. General Motors’ automotive rival, Ford, quickly tweeted a rebuke on Tuesday to the claim that Facebook advertising doesn’t work.

    Ford wasn’t the only one to offer a rebuttal to GM. Jan Rezab, the CEO of SocialBakers, penned an open letter to GM in Forbes that finely details what others have hinted at: GM didn’t understand how to do Facebook ads effectively, so they prematurely took its ball and went home.

    Despite Ford’s vote of confidence and Rezab’s compelling argument, Google’s Director of Product Management Jason Bigler couldn’t resist taking a poke or two at Facebook while the social networking site was still wearing some pie on its face:

    Jason Bigler
    @jasonbigler     Imagine, for a minute, what would happen if Facebook branded their data play like this: http://t.co/Nvq7z6AF
    1 day ago via web · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    Jason Bigler
    @jasonbigler     Seriously folks, did you really expect consumers to be in transactional mindsets on Facebook?
    1 day ago via web · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    The mystery of why Facebook ads work for some companies and perform atrociously for others may have something to do with the type of ad format these businesses are using. True, while the ad formats on Facebook are truly awful, according to a new study from WordStream, Greenlight found that the Sponsored Story format was the most popular and effective ad format. According to the authors, “the Sponsored Story format delivers, on average, a 32% decrease in cost per acquisitions (sales) and an increase in CTR (engagement).”

    Perhaps it’s just a case of companies putting all their faith in the wrong type of ad format? Or, going back to Rezab’s point, maybe companies just haven’t quite picked up on the winning formula to create engagement via Facebook?

    The disparity of success among businesses doesn’t appear to favor one over the other based on the size of the business, either. Yesterday, NPR reported on a marketing experiment it conducted recently where it followed the return on investment for a budding pizza restaurant in New Orleans. Ultimately, the restaurant owners earned $10 back on a $240 investment in Facebook ads and, perhaps worse, everybody they polled who visited the restaurant after the ads were deployed said they weren’t dining at the restaurant because they were persuaded by ads on Facebook.

    Oh, and the $10 was just a donation – it wasn’t even from somebody eating at the joint.

    So some ads work better than others, and ads on Facebook work better for some businesses than others. In other words, nobody exactly knows how Facebook ads work. Despite this confusion, people are still falling over themselves trying to get their hands on some Facebook shares despite the fact that there’s no clear sign how Facebook can or will pump up revenue through ad sales.

    In the meantime, Facebook’s sitting at the bottom of the advertising melee biting its tongue because the company’s in a quiet period until the IPO when it comes to talking about financial goings-on.

    Next week should prove to be a revealing week in the annals of Facebookdom when Zuckerberg and Co. can finally respond to this media mess.

  • GM Yanks Facebook Paid Ads, Says Ads Don’t Work

    Due to a lack of vim from the company’s paid ads on Facebook, General Motors is said to be planning to pull some advertising funds from the social networking site, according to the Wall Street Journal.

    The timing of GM’s decision to nix its paid advertising couldn’t come at a worse time for Facebook as it aims to make history this Friday with the expected bonanza of its initial public offering. Facebook executives spent the better part of last week and this week embarked on a road show hoping to convince enough investors that the company can achieve a $100 billion valuation at this Friday’s IPO. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has already had to assuage investors’ apprehension about Facebook’s difficulty in monetizing its mobile platform so it certainly is no vote of confidence for Zuck & Friends that the country’s third largest advertiser has declared paid advertising on Facebook as a money pit.

    From WSJ:

    Asked about the move, GM marketing chief Joel Ewanick said the auto maker, “is definitely reassessing our advertising on Facebook, although the content is effective and important.” Content refers to the unpaid Facebook pages many companies use to promote their products.

    GM started to re-evaluate its Facebook strategy earlier this year after its marketing team began to question the effectiveness of the ads. GM marketing executives, including Mr. Ewanick, met with Facebook managers to address concerns about the site’s effectiveness and left unconvinced advertising on the website made sense, according to people familiar with GM’s thinking.

    WSJ goes on to detail that GM spends a total of $40 million to maintain a presence on Facebook but only about $10 million is devoted to paid advertising on the site.

    Couple GM’s decision with a report released earlier today by WordStream that analyzed the effectiveness of advertising on Google or Facebook and declared that Facebook was lagging behind in the ad game. The WordStream report comes barely a month after a different survey said that Facebook was leaving Google in the dust with regard to cost-per-clicks.

    So is there any fear that investors could smell weakness in Facebook’s until-now seemingly irresistible ascent into its social days of Camelot? After the WordStream report and now the GM announcement, you have to imagine that some investors are going to at least balk at Facebook’s IPO. It likely won’t deter the company from becoming stinking rich this Friday, but it could make the difference between crossing that $100 billion valuation and hitting the ceiling in the mid-$90 billions (I know, because at that point, the difference between $90 billion and $100 billion is soooo different).

    Facebook has at least been making motions that its going to tackle the mobile advertising problem in the near future. Why else would Facebook be scooping up mobile apps ahead of Friday’s IPO? The acquisitions serve as an indication to investors that the company is forming a strategy for how to address the deficiency in mobile ad revenue. That fix is at least within Facebook’s grasp. But the GM defection? There’s no app that can be purchased to remedy that problem.

    Whether you’re a Wall Street jockey or just treat the stock market as a spectator sport, Facebook’s IPO in three days just got a bit more interesting. You have to imagine that Facebook’s mad men (and women) are doing some explaining right now on that road show of theirs so as to ensure that this is the last time you hear jarring reports like this:

    @dkberman
    Dennis K. Berman    Breaking from WSJ: GM has pulled its $10 million advertising campaign from Facebook. Why? The ads didn’t work. $GM 1 hour ago via TweetDeck ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

  • Robo-Glove: The Real-Life Power Glove From Space

    How many times have you helplessly pried at a jar lid and, regardless of your deadlift effort, failed to even so much as budge the lid a millimeter? You pass the jar around, giving others a go at twisting the lid off until finally somebody on the other side of the room succeeds at removing the lid in a feat no less remarkable than pulling Excalibur from its sheath of stone. All that effort for a little bit of salsa (or whatever jarred contents you prefer). If only our grips were better, right?

    Lucky for you, your grip might be getting a boost sometime in the near-ish future.

    By way of a joint venture between NASA and General Motors, that power-up for our feeble grip may be coming to us in the form of a new innovation called the Robo-Glove. Before the glove, which is also known as the K-Glove, becomes available to mere humans, it has nobler intentions than just opening the way for us to satisfy our junk food cravings: its aim is to help astronauts and autoworkers reduce the risk of job-related repetitive stress injuries.

    The invention comes as a result of another NASA/GM creation, the Robonaut 2, a project that launched the first humanoid robot into space in 2011. To truly be of maximum use to its human counterparts, one of the requirements for Robonaut 2 was to be able to handily manipulate tools that were designed to be used by human hands. Through the use of sensors, actuators, and tendons that closely resembled nerves and muscles in the human hand, engineers were able to create an uncanny level of hand dexterity with Robonaut 2.

    Ultimately, Robonaut 2 became a permanent resident aboard the International Space Station. For a little more background on Robonaut 2’s development, see the NASA video below.

    (And you know Robonaut 2 has its own Twitter account, right?)

    So how does a space-traveling robot help us get those pesky lids off of jars (among other things)? Borrowing inspiration from Robonaut 2’s finger actuation system, engineers were able to apply similar technology to a glove capable of assisting humans tasked with applying immense amounts of pressure to an object for a long period of time. For example, an astronaut working in a pressurized suit outside the space station or an assembly operator in a factory might need to use 15 to 20 pounds of force to hold a tool during an operation but with the Robo-glove they might need to apply only five to 10 pounds of force.

    “The prototype glove offers my spacesuit team a promising opportunity to explore new ideas, and challenges our traditional thinking of what extravehicular activity hand dexterity could be,” said Trish Petete, division chief at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, said in a statement.

    Concurrently, the glove also looks to reduce the risk of repetitive stress injuries, an occupational hazard that plagues those that work in automobile manufacturing. “When fully developed, the Robo-Glove has the potential to reduce the amount of force that an autoworker would need to exert when operating a tool for an extended time or with repetitive motions,” said Dana Komin, GM’s manufacturing engineering director.

    You can see the Robo-glove in action in the video below.

    Granted, we laity will probably be waiting several years with unopenable jars in hand before the Robo-glove is sharing space with can openers and spatulas in the kitchen drawer. I imagine many more functional, more in-demand uses for the glove (medicine, architecture, art, etc.) before the device is so low in stature and demand that its best use is to help you stuff your face with some store-bought guacamole.

  • Google Announces Partnerships with Ford and General Motors

    Google Announces Partnerships with Ford and General Motors

    Google announced that it has extended its Google Maps Send-to-Car service to Ford and GM vehicles. This applies to Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles in the US that are enabled with Ford SYNC, as well as OnStar equipped GM vehicles, which include models from Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Hummer, Pontiac, Saab and Saturn.

    Users of the Send-to-Car service can send business listings or addresses found on Google Maps directly to their cars. The expansion of the service is great news for local businesses, and perhaps makes it all the more important to hone their Google Maps presence.

    "Drivers can then use their car maker’s turn-by-turn navigation system to be guided to their selected destination. With today’s additions, drivers can send destinations from Google Maps directly to their connected vehicles in 19 countries and more than 20 different brands," says Markus Mühlbauer, Engineering and Product Manager. "In the US alone, Send-To-Car is now available on more than 15 car brands and we hope to see even more partners join us soon."

    Google - Send to Car feature

    "We think this is a great convenience for drivers – Prepare your route at your desk, send the destination to your car, and safely enjoy your ride – hands on the wheel, eyes on the road," he adds. "We also like to think that in the age of green driving, not having to print paper directions anymore is a great start of a green trip!"

    Now imagine if Google gets Android into that many vehicles one day, and consider the potential for apps that cater to the driving experience. Also consider that app-making is getting simpler.