Ewanick Leaps into Role of First-Ever GM Global Marketing Czar

Ewanick Leaps into Role of First-Ever GM Global Marketing Czar

By Dale Buss December 20, 2010

Joel Ewanick last week was named the first-ever global marketing czar for General Motors Co. He vowed to focus on empowering GM's brands around the world each to play to their regional strengths rather than take what he called a top-down, "cookie-cutter approach."

"It's easy to 'peanut-butter' a marketing idea around the world: take a big idea and spread it everywhere," Ewanick told AutoObserver.com in an interview the same day it was announced he would be GM's global chief marketing officer. "We're not looking for easy solutions, but hard solutions - we're looking for the character of a Chevrolet, or Buick, or other brands, to resonate in each market. We're not going to try to force-fit one solution."

The new role encompasses unprecedented authority within GM over marketing strategy and activities worldwide and, in providing Ewanick a seat on GM's executive committee, ensures significant new access for the marketing function at the very top of the company. It also brought Ewanick a relatively quick endorsement by GM's top management of the job he already has been doing as U.S. CMO, only a few months after he joined the company in April. CEO Dan Akerson cited his "marketing acumen and creative leadership" in the company's statement about the promotion.

The move by GM echoes that of Ford Motor Co. earlier this year, when the company promoted Jim Farley to head its marketing on a global basis in addition to the position of CMO for the United States, which Farley has held since joining Ford from Toyota's American operations in 2007.

A Guiding Hand
Although Ewanick was brought on board as GM's chief marketing officer in the United States to apply a hard-nosed rationality and uniformity in upgrading the company's erratic branding and marketing apparatus in America, he believes a velvet glove will be more appropriate to his new role.

"I'm going to encourage markets to take their best approach of understanding the character of their brands and applying that understanding to their own markets," said the 50-year-old Ewanick. "We're going to do that by understanding the customer in each market around the world better than they understand themselves.

"That's hard. There aren't a lot of companies doing it. It takes a lot of effort and work, and being very insightful and listening to customers so that we can get it, and have it resonate within our walls."

Ewanick explained he had served as a marketing executive in other automaker organizations where draconian global branding dictates came from the top, including Porsche and Hyundai. He was CMO for Hyundai Motor America in the U.S., helping launch its share-winning "Hyundai Assurance" marketing campaign in early 2009, before briefly stopping at Nissan's U.S. operations last spring prior to quickly being recruited by GM.

"I got dictates from headquarters that 'you will do it this way,'" Ewanick said of his former posts. "We're not going to do that" in his new role with GM. "We're going to make sure marketing leaders around the world have enough latitude to do what they want to do in their markets, as long as they keep it in character with the brand overall."

Chevy Runs Wide
Among other things, Ewanick's strategy will affect the Chevrolet brand globally. Ewanick has made re-energizing Chevy his top priority for the U.S., where it accounts for about 70 percent of GM's sales. Thus his first big branding gambit was the recent launch of the new "Chevy Runs Deep" marketing campaign in the United States.

"But we make 60 percent of Chevrolet sales outside the United States," Ewanick noted. "And the brand is growing exponentially faster in markets around the world than it is here. So we want to do a better job of managing that brand, and the character of that brand, to leverage it for the long haul - which includes applying synergies from North America to other markets."

GM's release about Ewanick's new role said he "will ensure consistent global messaging form all brands," including not only Chevrolet but also Buick, Cadillac, GMC, Holden in Australia, and Opel and Vauxhall in Europe.

First-Ever Position
While formulating his approach as global marketing chief rather than just as U.S. marketing boss, Ewanick won't be able to consult a template: GM never has had a global CMO before. Ewanick assumes a lofty seat on the company's executive committee and begins reporting directly to Akerson in addition to continuing to report to his previous boss, Mark Reuss, head of the company's North American operations, for domestic marketing matters.

"We've had someone in similar types of positions, but our (corporate) structure is so different now that we've never had someone in this role of global advocate for the customer," Ewanick said. "I don't think anyone has ever reported to the CEO before from the marketing department, and no one from the marketing department ever has had a permanent seat on the executive committee."

In announcing Ewanick's promotion, Akerson emphasized the importance of taking "a more customer-focused view of our overall marketing strategy."

Said Ewanick: "It shows that the company has really embraced the idea that we need to understand our customer better to be more effective and forward-thinking, and we need to be bringing that customer into the conversation on a regional basis to understand what's motivating them - not only in America but everywhere in the world."

GM spokesman Patrick Morrissey said it was yet to be determined exactly what the company might do with the position of U.S. CMO.

Photos by GM

Dale Buss:  is a contributor to Edmunds.com's AutoObserver