GM's 'Future Leaders': Alain Visser
By Michelle Krebs September 15, 2008By Dale Buss
It hasn't even been a year since Alain Visser became chief marketing officer of General Motors of Europe, but he can't learn from his predecessor: There wasn't one. As the division's first CMO, Visser is getting a chance not only to put a big stamp on the organization but also to define his own job.
"We didn't have a multi-brand marketing leader before, so it's a bit of a challenge for the organization," said Visser, a veteran auto marketer. "We believe there are more synergies to be found from a cross-brand point of view. But also, we want to keep [brands] apart and differentiated - that is my key objective."
Already, the 44-year-old native Belgian has become keenly aware of how big the job is - "a lot stronger," he said, "than what the function would be in the United States." In Europe, Visser said, the function includes tighter integration between product engineering and marketing.
"And what is called marketing here goes way beyond advertising, sponsorships and special events; it includes sales operations and tactical marketing as well. It's a very wide area that includes both [the] short term as well as what the brands mean in 2015."
He also is cognizant of what it means to be named one of GM's hot prospects, as part of GMnext. "It's great to see that you're one of those few that are not being only internally identified as a future leader but also externally as a spokesperson for the company," he said. "I doubt whether it's something that is really accelerating my career, but it is nice motivation."
Promising Polyglot
Visser grew up learning six languages, graduated from the University of Belgium in his home town of Antwerp, and then got an MBA at Duke University. Once he returned home, Ford of Europe snatched him up, and Visser spent the next 17 years working his way through the organization in various marketing positions.
He jumped to GM of Europe in early 2004 as the head of marketing for the company's volume brand, Opel Vauxhall - which also was a new position at the time. Visser was attracted away from Ford by the "passion for brands" demonstrated by his prospective colleagues at GM and because his new company is "extremely focused on making sure brands are differentiated, including a passion for proper details and execution.
"I'm not an engineer," Visser explained, "but I'm an absolute car freak, and the way I see top management behave in design and product reviews is quite thrilling."
In his new job, Visser's charge is to develop a multi-brand strategy - even including Hummer and Corvette - for the entire market.
From his perch at Ford, Visser also saw that brand overlap was one of GM's biggest shortcomings in its approach to the European market. Often, he said, this could be seen in an apparent lack of coordination between Chevrolet and Opel in the terms and timing of incentive offers, for instance, or in both brands' deciding independently to sponsor similar bands.
"We want a music theme to be owned by one brand," Visser declared. "These things won't happen anymore."
But straightening out the problem is a tricky pursuit for a few reasons, he admitted.
One obstacle lies in the nature of the European market. Despite the unification currents inherent in the union, coping with cultural, language and economic differences remains a huge - and, often, underappreciated -- challenge for any pan-European company.
There are, for example, the vast differences between mature markets such as Germany and the United Kingdom and fast-growing, developing markets including Russia. "So you need different types of brand emphasis," he said.
French is No Paradox
GM of Europe marketers also must "try to have a pan-European tool box, but the implementation of it needs to be flexible," Visser explained. "If you don't understand cultural differences, you will make big mistakes. And it's unnatural for someone who isn't from Europe to really understand and feel that."
Visser said competing marketers within a company often exploit the need for diversity just to protect their fiefdoms. "Each market would prefer to run its own TV ads, of course; it's like taking away their toys," he said. "So 'cultural differences' are often an excuse for saying, 'We need to do a different TV ad in Italy.'"
In such cases, Visser said, his advanced language skills can give him an edge internally. "The French guys can't tell me, 'The French are like this,' because I speak their language and I have lived there. I think I know what I'm talking about when I discuss French culture.'"
Another major factor as Visser forges his multi-brand strategy is that the nature of the assignment itself is challenging. "The best way to keep the brands differentiated is to keep them working with each other," he said. Yet, for example, "Saab ads need to be produced by a Saab marketing team, not with Opel; there should be no cross-synergies there."
And at the same time, Visser has got to press for cross-brand efficiencies that customers can't see. "If we buy TV time as GM, customers don't see that - and if we buy it as GM, our discount power is significantly better than if we buy it as Saab."
Yet Visser insisted that his challenge could be much stiffer. "The good thing about all of our brands here is that the degree of cannibalization is unbelievably low," he said. "We have the advantage with our brands of covering different products and totally different customer profiles, and that's what it's all about."
Alain Visser
Title: Chief Marketing Officer, GM of Europe
Location: GM of Europe complex in Russelsheim, Germany
Age: 44
Born: Belgium
Personal: Married with children ages 8 and 12.
Spare-time pursuits: Enjoys "great food and great wine" and also music. "I'm quite into listening and recording and downloading music."
Business heroes: No one comes to mind outside GM, but "[CEO] Rick Wagoner and [President] Fritz Henderson are guys that I admire."
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