[ad#post_ad]People often ask why GM doesn't seem to be advertising the Volt.
It turns out now that launch is near, the process has begun. Since GM announced the new initial launch markets of Texas and New York, print, television, and newspaper ads have begun appearing in those regions.
At the top of this article you can see a copy of the Volt print ad that ran among other places in the New York Times. At the bottom of this article you can see a 30 second Chevrolet Volt television commercial.
I also had the follwing discussion on this with Tony DiSalle who is GMs director of Volt marketing.
How about people who get confused about the 40 mile range, do you think there is some education needed as some people see the LEAF as being somehow better and how will you go about correcting that?
There's no question. How we are going about doing it? One way is to talk to you and people like yourself to get the word out. Clearly we have a lot more work to do digitally ourselves. You will absolutely see messaging from us from an advertising and marketing perspective to try to get the word out as well. You're absolutely right, this is neat, it is a great marketing challenge as there isn’t a clear frame of reference for this. We're kind of in many ways because the car is so innovative, we have to over-communicate in order to land the message with the consumer.
In terms of how the Volt does what it does, how we are able to achieve this notion of you don’t have to sacrifice your lifestyle. You charge your Volt overnight you take it out running errands, your plans change, don’t worry about it, you don’t have to come home and recharge. We have a backup system that’s going to get you where you need to go.
We’re working on creative concepts to help bring that to life right now, and also a lot of the PR outreach talking to people like yourself is really important.
The grassroots approach?
Yes. And I'll also tell you we have a saying here that there is no better marketing told for the Volt than the Volt. Getting people in the car is going to be very very important.
You mean buyers and owners?
Buyers and having dealers demonstrate the vehicle and all of those kind of things. Auto shows, events, those kinds of grassroots things, as easy and as basic and as simple as it sounds, you can literally have somebody sit in the car, walk them around it, and in many cases drive it. I have found when you can do that the car can and does sell and educate itself.
I hear people ask why GM isn’t advertising the Volt in a traditional way. There's no cool ads when Nissan is doing all this stuff for the LEAF. Are big flashy Volt ads something we will eventually see?
Oh yeah, you will at some point. Keep in mind we're still five months away from launch. As we get closer you'll obviously see more and more from an advertising perspective from us.
I can't tell you specifically the medium and those kinds of things, those are things that were working through right now. There's clearly an intent to advertise.
Will we see some celebrity endorsements, or things along those lines?
There's nothing for me to announce to you today…we know this neurologist in New York…
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