Back in the spring of 2006, I had made critical comments on the announcement of the Saturn PreVue Concept. At that time Saturn was a struggling brand and GM had decide to make "Saturn" as the "Opel of America" by re-badging Opel as Saturn. Now, 5 years later, unfortunately, we do not have Saturn but we do have the "Opel of America", this time around as a "Buick". Yes, GM continues to resort to its old tactics and this time it has re-badged Opel Insignia as Buick Regal. It will be interesting to watch what will this do to Buick.
On April 15, 2006 at 5:47 pm aasheesh said:
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| Saturn PreVue Concept |
Mr Lutz,
PreVue is indeed a well styled “concept.” Very European, neh! Yes, it is. If you have been keeping track of the auto shows it is not difficult to place this one. The Saturn PreVue is nothing but a re-badge Opel Antara concept displayed at the Frankfurt Auto show. Why? Why?
Why GM does not want give up on old habit of “Badge Engineering”. Unfortunately, GM’s marketing strategies have not evolved over the years. Time and again GM resorts to this old tactics. And I think that is one important reason why your efforts are not appreciated by customer and GM’s market share continues to drop.
Why can’t you get Opel Antara to the US? Or why can’t you wrap a new skin with more American styling cue onto Antara to sell it as PreVue in the US. I should not have to remind you that internet has change the way information flows across the globe. So re-badging will not help in building brands. Instead, it will only liquidate the brand equity of those brands. You don’t see a Mercedes, BMW and likes resorting to re-badging tactics. Isn’t this an important fact why these brands continue to leverage from their brand equity?
GM needs to build strong brands and NOT number of brands.
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