Interesting article..........with facts..........April 9, 2005 "Automobear.com" part 1

GM announced on Friday that it would pull its advertising from the LA Times, citing perpetual misrepresentation of its products – most recently, the Pontiac G6 midsize sedan.

It was, to those of us familiar with some of the LA Times' writing, a long-awaited move, if less than a foregone conclusion. Despite the potential for disingenuous relationships between a publisher and the advertisers that keep it alive, advertising in print – and the corollary practice of fitting articles around advertisements on a printed page – has become so prevalent as to be considered normal.

In such a landscape, this may be an unconventional move. That said, it is one thing to expect favoritism; it is quite another when your products; your company, and its executives are judged undeserving of both fairness, and of well-formed opinion.

Without pointing fingers at any one individual, there has indeed been some disingenuous automotive reporting within the LA Times. We have often wondered why it behooved GM to fund such unsupported commentary, but apparently it may have taken a blatant error – one which should have been fact-checked before the issue went to print – to force GM's hand.

The old Grand Am was a Pontiac best-seller for nearly two decades. It seemed logical that a sales comparison between the Grand Am and the new G6 would be made and, indeed, one was put forth by the LA Times on Wednesday.

It was a fundamentally inaccurate comparison, and the blindingly incorrect conclusion may well have been the last straw for GM.

Simply put, the new, and evolving, G6 range currently includes only a V6 sedan, with one engine in two trim levels. Grand Am, to which the G6 was compared in sales, incorporated an entire family, including four-cylinder; six-cylinder, sedan, and coupé models.

One can see why these things are important. A recent Detroit Free Press article included a quote from Bank of America Securities brokerage firm auto analyst Ronald Tadross, who "specifically cited the sluggish performance of the G6 as a key reason he warned investors in a report last month to sell their stock in GM, sparking a sell-off on Wall Street that damaged the automaker and local investors" ('Oprah Buzz works no magic for Pontiac G6,' Detroit Free Press, March 22nd, 2005).

Let's look at the facts. If one were to compare March, 2005 G6 V6 retail sales to March, 2004 Grand Am V6 retail sales, the numbers would play at 7,859 to 5,017, 57% in favor of the G6. Even if we took G6 V6 sales versus sales of all Grand Am models for March 2005 versus March 2004, the G6 would still figure at 80% of the total - a solid achievement for a more expensive, less varied line-up.

Certainly, March 2004 represented the latter part of the Grand Am's product life-cycle, but it is also true that the car continued to sell well through to the end, largely because of incentives. With the G6, Pontiac has attempted to pull away from incentivized promotions – and it appears to be working. While the LA Times (among others) confused Pontiac incentives as a whole with those specifically on the G6, Edmunds TMV prices suggest that a base G6 is sold at $20,045 – just $1,255 under its sticker price in a highly-competitive market full of incentives (G6's is up to $1,500 atop the TMV price). A base G6 GT moved at $22,500, $1,425 under its MSRP. Both represent a leap from the Grand Am, and neither seems to warrant the comments made in the LA Times.

Taking the G6 on its own merits, sales have grown with each month, with the exception of January (a month in which both the G6's segment and the industry were down).

 

responsible journalism at last. unfortunatly such a thing taks work and actual research. doubly unfortunate that once the average consumer hears of the "facts" presented in print the damage is done and no amount of patching can help. this is really a no win situation for GM. you can't MAKE someone do a fair and honest job. not even when some of the funding comes from the source being journalised.