I Spy with My BrandsEye: General Motors Brand Reinvention Part 2

Last week on I Spy we looked at General Motors and their brave brand reinvention move amongst the turmoil of the world economy. Their move was received well with the majority of the mentions being rated with a +2 Endorsement and the bulk of the chatter around this topic coming from Consumer mentions.

But there was one dark cloud that threatened GM’s bold move. We picked up on a spoof video that had been made to mock GM’s brand reinvention advert. Is it possible for some small mock video to tear down all GM’s hard work?

When you look on YouTube  the original GM Brand Reinvention video has been viewed 8 746 times, while the spoof video has been viewed 93 851 times. That means that for every one view that GM’s advert got, the spoof video got ten views! let's find out what effect this has had on GM’s reputation.

Where are the mentions coming from?

Last week the majority of the mentions were coming from Consumers and this week is no different with 76.67% of the rated mentions originating from consumers. The rest of the mentions came from Enterprise mentions, 16.67%, Directories, 3.33% and Press mentions, 3.33%.

It seems not much has changed since last week, the Press have not yet caught on to the story and enterprise sites are equally ignoring GM’s efforts. Yet, even without the help of press and enterprise mentions to spread the word, the story is being talked about. And by consumers no less, which is what we can only assume GM would want.    

Since the media origin has changed very little from last week, let’s focus on what is being said, especially in light of the spoof video.
 

The sentiment of the mentions:

The majority of the mentions are still +2 Endorsements (36.67%). This is, however, not a huge majority with the rest of the mentions being rated with a -2 Concern (6.67%), -1 Downplay (23.33%), +1 listing (13.33%) and +3 Praise (20%).

This -2 Concern expresses how consumer are reacting to GM’s brand reinvention once the spoof video highlighted certain truths about big companies such as GM : “This GM spoof video I found on Twitter  is good for a laugh and highlights the ridiculous situation big, bloated companies are finding themselves in.”

Other negative mentions such as this -1 Downplay, show that while the spoof video has by no means destroyed GM’s efforts, it has put a slight damper on it: “We'll start off by saying that this spoof on General Motors' Re:invention commercial is not exactly fair and not exactly accurate... but it is funny.” With the majority of the negative mentions following this similar sentiment, it doesn’t look like GM will be hard hit.

The same -1 Downplay mentioned above elicited over 40 comments with consumers arguing over GM’s honour. This comment is an example of what consumer are saying about GM with regards to the spoof video. “The commercial says GM has been screwing the customer for 100 years. Really? Is that how they got to 51% of the market share?”

This Enterprise mention shows how GM’s brand reinvention is being picked up as a case study on how brands can use Social Media to make a come back! It was rated with a +3 Praise and really captures the essence of GM’s brand reinvention: “This week I'd like to take a look at one example of a company that is utilizing it's blogs very well: General Motors.” 

And what about their reputation?

Last week GM ended off on a really strong 2.07 reputation score. This week that score has decreased slightly to 1.92 (out of a possible 5). This drop in score is due to the negative effect of the spoof video. Lucky for GM the spoof video has done minimal harm and I have to give it to consumers for debating the topic and making up their own mind. With that being the case, those that follow GM in the end could turn out to be the most loyal.

Coming back to the video views:

Two groups are emerging in GM’s market, those that have seen the original GM advert and the spoof and those that have only seen the spoof. Those that have seen the spoof in conjunction with the original are viewing the spoof in context and have enough knowledge to form their own opinion. And we have seen this happen with consumers defending GM in comments on posts.

The numbers show that nine out ten people have only watched the spoof video. This group threatens GM’s reputation as they may communicate a biased opinion based on the spoof. When the vulgar Domino’s Pizza videos came out, the Domino’s CEO released a video to counteract the damage. While the CEO's video was watched, it did not manage to garner the same number of views that the original videos did, leaving the same two groups of people that GM is left with now. This is something that Domino’s failed to realise and their sales have suffered.

The best thing for GM to do now would be to promote the GM advert to increase views and close the gap between the two groups. They have the structures in place with their brand reinvention blog and their fast-lane blog. Now let’s see if they use them!