GM parks the Hummer (possibly for good)
General Motors has announced that it is now “reviewing” the future of its super-sized Hummer SUV brand. A 60% plunge in sales in May focused GM’s attention on the brand, which had been slipping in recent years as gasoline prices soared and social criticism of the brand became more pointed.
GM’s options
According to industry analysts, GM’s primary options are to downsize Hummer vehicles to achieve better fuel economy, introduce some sort of hybrid or alternative-fuel power plant, or sell the brand outright. The downsizing process had already begun with the Hummer H2 and H3 models. Hummer concept cars are even smaller. If GM closes its two Hummer plants in the US, the only remaining Hummer production facilities would be in South Africa and Russia. That would leave a marginal presence.
Holes in the Hummer brand strategy?
The announcement by GM was not a total surprise. The Hummer had been hurting. Why, though, did Hummer paint itself into such a brand corner in the first place? Where was the brand strategy to advance the business beyond easily foreseen challenges? Indeed, future business books may cast the hulking, gas-guzzling Hummer as a brand that fell seriously behind the customer curve, if not grievously out of touch with reality. “Hummer” may wind up as a textbook case of how not to craft a brand.
Let’s take a closer look at the Hummer brand strategy.
Brand strategy, vision and approach
As we’ve noted many times before, a brand is “company potential X customer potential.” In reviewing a brand strategy we always begin with a set of diagnostic questions about the brand approach and its objectives, as they involve the customer. The following are some of those questions:
- Is this brand part of the solution, or part of the problem?
- What kind of (proactive) customer is this brand trying to create?
- Where is this brand leading its customers?
- What’s the vision behind the brand? What is it a brand of?
- How does this brand innovate to create more customer value?
- How is this brand a platform for customer growth?
- How does the brand collaborate with customers?
There’s neither space nor time to answer these individually, so what follows are some general comments.
Gross vs. green
Since its inception, the Hummer brand has been a conspicuous flash point for condemnation by “green” activists and conservation groups. They view it as a threat to the environment because of its large size, unregulated emissions and heavy fuel consumption. It’s almost as if GM invited the waves of green opprobrium as a way of differentiating the brand—as a politically incorrect, crush-all-comers beast, positioned for those who felt threatened by an eco-friendly world.
Strategically, though, why bring out a brand with so many anti-green connotations when the vast majority of world brands—and GM itself—was beginning (in the 1990′s) to go gung-ho green, with the (green) writing clearly on the wall?
This was a battle that “gross” could never win. What was GM’s brand vision? Hummer certainly seemed to be leading customers toward a dead end.
What was “Hummer” a brand of?
It seems to me that the Hummer was primarily a brand of irresponsibility. It was a means to avoid the responsibilities of growing up (literally, figuratively, spiritually). Thus, the very obvious Tonka Toy look and colors, and the juvenile little-boy-breaks-the-rules ethos that thoroughly permeated the brand and its advertising. The Hummer/McDonald’s Summer of a Hummer promotion aimed at kids also comes to mind. The brand seemed to be leading customers backward.
In a Hummer, you’re a bad, bad boy
But there’s more. In a Hummer you could flaunt society and get a humongous tax break thanks to a loophole. And, the Hummer was exempt from certain gas mileage and emission regulations because of its high gross weight. You could drive a Hummer and be a bad, bad boy, all the way to the bank. That’s almost as good as having a Carl’s Jr. Double Six Dollar Burger for breakfast, lunch and dinner. (These two brands seem largely cut from the same cloth.)
A pullback from brand authenticity?
All of GM’s options noted above would seem to involve a decrease in the “authenticity” of the Hummer brand. The downsized H2 and H3 already use common Chevrolet SUV and truck platforms, and are less authentic than the iconic H1. Making newer models the size of a Subaru, or powering them with a Prius-like powerplant, would seem to diminish the defined brand authenticity even further. This raises the troubling question of whether GM’s Hummer was a dead-end brand from the get-go, with nowhere for its authenticity to grow.
If you can’t grow authenticity through your product, you grow it through your customers. But by selling the Hummer as a symbol, GM guaranteed that its customer roots would not run deep.
A brand for hands-off wannabees
In its original form the Hummer possessed some amazing off-road capabilities, but few bought it to ramble through rock-strewn gullies. The vast majority of real off-roaders work their magic with tricked out Jeeps and Toyotas. They’re hands-on owners who creatively remix and re-invent their brands with beefed-up aftermarket parts. In contrast, the Hummer seemed largely meant for hands-off wannabees. It was a status symbol, not a tool. By and large, most Hummers in the States spend their days on trips to the mall, or cruising big boulevards as a party wagon.
Brand problem: cars sold as symbols rarely evoke deep customer passions that can invigorate the brand and keep it alive. When the symbol wanes, the brand is finished.
Beyond brand failure
It seems to me that Hummer ultimately had two fatal strikes against it: a poorly positioned product and a retrograde, polarizing and almost cynical brand with very little vision behind it. A better brand strategy, and a Howard Gossage doing the ads, may have led to a very different outcome.
Of course, GM might like to think that the Hummer brand didn’t fail at all. They might want to believe that the Hummer was a terrific brand that was only done in by a totally unexpected rise in fuel prices, coupled with a green revolution out of the blue. According to this view, the brand’s decline was due to external factors that no one (inside Detroit) could have anticipated. Ever. Honest. Make that double honest!
That’s what they might be telling Ratan Tata should he take their call.
But I’m not sure that Mr. Tata would buy it.
Photo: Pal Berge — Flickr
