[AZCamaroFan]

Originally Posted by MackSteelPrivateEye

You can sell a piece of sh!t if it wrapped up right and marketed to the correct audience...its done every day.

...

[arpad_m]

Originally Posted by Number 3

I’ll grant you that, companies do try. But it’s still manure and the customers very quickly find that out. I know it’s manure and smells bad but gosh the commercial is sooooooo bad a$$ I think I’ll buy some more. I don’t think so.

But the point of this discussion would still be can GM be more profitable if they paid to advertise the manure. They apparently don’t believe so or they would have done it. That is the data you and I don’t have access to.

Number 3, I follow these repartees in multiple threads with great interest and sometimes even fascination, but only as a complete outsider, and I don't want to dilute the discussion with useless comments.

One thing does stand out in my personal experience, though: brand awareness, or the almost complete lack thereof. People around here simply don't know that Camaro still exists (and in its best form ever at that).

Aren't there long term consequences of simply allowing it to wither and lapse? Couldn't a few commercials help with that? Similarly to attempting to overcome the image of GM producing crap that has been lingering for decades, I'd imagine it's way more difficult to resurrect a brand from oblivion than keeping interest alive.

Of course, this is just my common sense point of view and I'll be the first to admit it completely lacks scientific validation.

[ChildhoodMuscle]

I suspect my personal experience is not unique & may shed some light.

Drove mostly European brand sports cars & sport coupes for years (mostly Porsches), and some Japanese sedans with rally heritage. Camaro was never on my radar screen. Now that I've discovered & owned 2 gen 6 Camaros, I'm exactly the segment Chevy should market to.

But I found out about the good qualities of the Camaro purely by accident! I was on vacation & wanted to check out a Mustang so wanted to rent one, but they gave me a Camaro instead, and the rest is history. I came back from vacation & bought a 2SS, and switched to a 2SS 1LE later (and love it)!

Chevy did a poor job in letting people like me know that the Camaro may be a car I want to buy.

When someone (like me) never considers a Camaro, we have blinders on. As a car guy, I read every car review out there that interests me, but I never saw the Motortrend M4 vs Camaro review until the rental experience got me searching for Camaro reviews (saw it the evening after picking up the rental Camaro). I had read all the M4 reviews, but somehow skipped the one that mentioned Camaro until I got interested in the Camaro!

I understand a marketing plan that says win awards, good magazine reviews, rental cars, and all that (I did marketing for many years including at executive level). But Chevy could do a lot more to get the attention of people like me who really wants a Camaro but didn't/don't know it!

[Gunkk]

I'm with NUMBER 3 on this:

Advertising will get folks into the showroom, sure. But to close the deal the camaro has to get past a small hurdle: practicality; and then a big one price. Remember Chevy dumps a healthy chunk of its performance ad spend budget on NASCAR and IMSA, et. al., where much of its market (we enthusiasts) spend our time. So they're spending plenty on marketing/advertising, but just not in ways you expect or perhaps prefer.

You want to advertise to the average american schmoe making average wages in an average town ... what will they think and feel and say and do when they put their average butt into a Camaro?

In the last decade since the 5th gen release all cars have become more expensive due to all the reasons we know (more gizmos, gobs more emissions and safety equipment, higher labor costs, etc.). Small cars don't make profits. So Chevy has made the choice to price their "sportier" cars with a pretty healthy premium. This has dramatically improved unit gross margins but driven down volume considerably. As long as the volume is sufficient to cover the NRE and overheads, they're winning.

I made the chart below a while back for another thread, but it tells the tale. You want to spend nearly 50% of an annual income on a car ($500+/mo for an SS w/ insurance). But when you go further back to a time when they were making many hundreds of thousands of cars per year in the Norwood OH plant, it gets even more dramatic. A base LS Camaro today is relatively more expensive to the average American than a Z/28 was 40 years ago. There aren't enough "Above Average" folks and the rest can't afford performance cars today like they used to as 2nd cars or weekend play toys. "Average" folks are therefore stuck with the choice to buying only one $40k car to use as a DD and obviously forced to consider practicality.

This is where NUMBER 3's argument (earlier in the thread) about visibility & rear seats comes into play, and where Camaro is in last place with the non-enthusiast masses that can be appealed to with big TV ad spend. From this point of view, the Camaro is just a cheaper Corvette: Pricy performance car with very limited practicality. And no amount of advertising can overcome this basic reality.

[396ssrat]

And regardless of how awesome a car might be it won't sell very well when it is invisible. The C8 is already visble and hasn't begun production yet.

[shaffe]

Originally Posted by 396ssrat

If GM is so smart why are they in 3rd place with Camaro sales? It doesn't have to be like that unless you are saying they are doing it intentionally.
Besides, you don't sell the Steak, you sell the Sizzle. This is what Dodge has been doing with the Challenger.

Part of it is intentionally. The overall sales numbers include fleet which GM has drastically cut down. I believe even you cut out fleet sales Camaro would still be number 3 maybe move into number 2 spot but all the numbers would be even worse.

Originally Posted by 396ssrat

And regardless of how awesome a car might be it won't sell very well when it is invisible. The C8 is already visble and hasn't begun production yet.

The difference is the C8 is GM's halo vehicle, not just Chevy's and has been something (ME Vette) that has been talked about since the late 60s or early 70s IIRC

[ChildhoodMuscle]

Originally Posted by 396ssrat

And regardless of how awesome a car might be it won't sell very well when it is invisible. The C8 is already visble and hasn't begun production yet.

Agreed. It's a little late for the gen 6 Camaro now, but a social media blitz when the '16 SS & '17 1LEs were hot would not have requited a huge budget, and would have generated a lot more awareness in the right target market segment. I was regularly on a few enthusiasts car forums & never knew about the Camaro. I'd bet there are lots more like me who would have bought one if we knew back then.

There is another possible reason for Chevy though... even as they allowed the Camaro to be closer to the Corvette in performance, they may have intentionally held the Camaro back in marketing.

[MackSteelPrivateEye]

Unfornately all of GMs real movers and shakers are long time dead. Bill Mitchell, Zora Duntov, Harley Earl, John Delorean, Jim Wangers....shall I go on? These guys were legends and made history because they were doers and pushed the envelope of styling, performance and marketing. What we have running GM now are politically correct punks afraid to take a chance and offend. Look at the punk ass ads they run that are actually pathetic. Feminine punks from the top down. Sure I'm sure some want to step out of line and push the envelope, but the won't with the punk leadership.

[MackSteelPrivateEye]

Originally Posted by ChildhoodMuscle

Agreed. It's a little late for the gen 6 Camaro now, but a social media blitz when the '16 SS & '17 1LEs were hot would not have requited a huge budget, and would have generated a lot more awareness in the right target market segment. I was regularly on a few enthusiasts car forums & never knew about the Camaro. I'd bet there are lots more like me who would have bought one if we knew back then.

There is another possible reason for Chevy though... even as they allowed the Camaro to be closer to the Corvette in performance, they may have intentionally held the Camaro back in marketing.

Its not too late. Remember when the Challengers first came back out? They were not selling. Dodge revamped their ad campaigns focused on performance and in your face ads, they added all types of new options like various hood scoop packages, stripe and graphic kits. They focused on that 707hp hemi in the Hellcat. I went to a local car show even before the Hellcat came out yet everyone was talking about it. Thats called marketing.

[hotlap]

Originally Posted by MackSteelPrivateEye

Unfornately all of GMs real movers and shakers are long time dead. Bill Mitchell, Zora Duntov, Harley Earl, John Delorean, Jim Wangers....shall I go on? These guys were legends and made history because they were doers and pushed the envelope of styling, performance and marketing. What we have running GM now are politically correct punks afraid to take a chance and offend. Look at the punk ass ads they run that are actually pathetic. Feminine punks from the top down. Sure I'm sure some want to step out of line and push the envelope, but the won't with the punk leadership.

I disagree here. The Alpha Camaro has uncompromised performance because of guys like Mark Reuss, Dan Ammann, Al Oppenheiser, Aaron Link and more.

These guys are all certified track drivers. I've read that they, and other engineers, meet at GM's Milford Proving Ground on Friday's to drive. Reuss and Ammann are “Level 6 drivers within General Motors".

You also can't argue that the current Camaro's styling wasn't "taking a chance".

The passion for performance is there and that's why GM is so dominant right now. They just fail to market it properly (at all).


Mark Reuss - President of General Motors
Dan Ammann - CEO position at GM Cruise Automation
Al Oppenheiser - Former Camaro Chief engineer. Leads EV Development at GM
Aaron Link - Camaro lead development engineer/chassis tuner. Now Corvette lead development engineer

[shaffe]

Originally Posted by hotlap

You also can't argue that the current Camaro's styling wasn't "taking a chance".

If I am reading this right I think the majority would disagree with you there. I think the 6th gen was about as safe as design as they possibly could have gone with. I don't see any chances being taken with that design

[MackSteelPrivateEye]

Originally Posted by hotlap

I disagree here. The Alpha Camaro has uncompromised performance because of guys like Mark Reuss, Dan Ammann, Al Oppenheiser, Aaron Link and more.

These guys are all certified track drivers. I've read that they, and other engineers, meet at GM's Milford Proving Ground on Friday's to drive. Reuss and Ammann are “Level 6 drivers within General Motors".

You also can't argue that the current Camaro's styling wasn't "taking a chance".

The passion for performance is there and that's why GM is so dominant right now. They just fail to market it properly (at all).




Mark Reuss - President of General Motors
Dan Ammann - CEO position at GM Cruise Automation
Al Oppenheiser - Former Camaro Chief engineer. Leads EV Development at GM
Aaron Link - Camaro lead development engineer/chassis tuner. Now Corvette lead development engineer

Unfotunately they are a flickering flame compared to the names I mentioned.

[hotlap]

Originally Posted by shaffe

If I am reading this right I think the majority would disagree with you there. I think the 6th gen was about as safe as design as they possibly could have gone with. I don't see any chances being taken with that design

Every compromise the Camaro has is directly related to it style. High belt line, slammed roof.

Yes. It evolved from the gen5 but no more so than Ford did with the Mustang.

[shaffe]

Originally Posted by hotlap

Every compromise the Camaro has is directly related to it style. High belt line, slammed roof.

Yes. It evolved from the gen5 but no more so than Ford did with the Mustang.

Mustang stayed pretty safe as well. I was just saying I don't think the gen 6 design is taking any chances like you implied is all