GMC Targets Ads To 'Wealth-Wise' By David Kile

DETROIT - In a new advertising campaign for the all new Sonoma light-duty truck, General Motors Corp. is trying to put greater distance between its brand and Chevrole

The primary image TV viewers will see beginning later this month is a Cadillac Seville being squashed by a hydraulic crusher, the result being a new Sonoma. The idea, which has become the strategy of the year in the light-truck and minivan segments, is to position GMCs as having the most ‘car-like’ rides in the category. Print ads carry headlines such as ‘This is the best second car I’ve ever owned.’
In the campaign – from McCann SAS, Troy, Mich. – GMC carries its ‘The Strength of Experience,’ tag-line into its third year. According to Warren Christell, director of consumer influence and business operations, the Sonoma advertising campaign makes a special attempt to reach out to GMC’s emerging upscale truck buyer who is more likely than a Chevy buyer to have a pickup on one side of the garage, and a Cadillac or Oldsmobile on the other.
‘We aren’t turning our back on the ‘traditional’ GMC buyer, but the ‘wealth-wise’ segment has become 65% of our customers, and that percentage is growing,’ said Christell.
National ad spending for the division in 1994 is expected to be around $55 million, up from about $35 in 1990.
Copyright Adweek L.P. (1993)