So who is the bigger fool? (GM for spending this kind of money on interruption marketing without generating any ROI, or the agencies who kept running up the fees actually expecting to get paid.) At what point in their $3.5 billion ad spending did the light bulb not go off that consumers aren’t responding?

Fire the CMO — I’ll do the job for a fraction of their compensation

(1) Poor products (regardless of ad spend) do not sell; GM’s product problems reflect their being out of touch with its customers

(2) Advertising (regardless of product quality) only creates awareness but not sales; even for those GM models that have sold well, GM has failed to embrace permission/relationship marketing to drive sales — in favor of relying upon “monolog” advertising

So GM could address both by connecting with customers via permission marketing:
* gather ongoing & timely input to guide product design
* connect/dialogue with prospects to improve conversion to customers

“the problem is that GM marketers need to enter the 21st century and realize they have an opportunity to connect with their customers”

If anything, the failure of GM proves that advertising alone, no matter the quality, does not equal success. If your product is inferior to that of your competitor’s your brand will hurt.

The internet has leveled the playing field no matter how you look at it and it has empowered consumers. If your product sucks, you wont survive.