A Brand Consulting Offer For GM

Derrick DayeJuly 24, 20095 min

It’s a new day at General Motors. Fresh out of bankruptcy the company is moving to restore its leadership role with the spirit that fostered pride and ingenuity for more than a century. The Blake Project, the brand consultancy behind Branding Strategy Insider wants to help this American Icon strengthen its brands for the road ahead. So to Fritz Henderson, Bob Lutz and other respected GM executives here is our sincere offer:

A day together to share insights, ideas and expertise free of charge outside of economy travel expenses. (A 100k value) We will structure the day based on your needs and will share specific recommendations. I’m proud to say my team is ready, well respected and well suited to assist you in building a future of success.

Jack Trout – World Class Brand Consultant, originator of the Positioning concept.
Derrick Daye – World Class Brand Consultant for 200+ brands in all stages of development and numerous categories.
Mark Ritson – World Class Brand Consultant, Educator at MIT, London Business School and other respected institutions.

Please see our full bio’s below. This offer can be accepted confidentially at my address or openly here on Branding Strategy Insider.

Here’s to reinvention for a stronger GM.

The Blake Project Team:

Jack Trout
Jack is the acclaimed author of many marketing classics including: Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Differentiate or Die, Big Brands. Big Trouble, A Genie’s Wisdom, Trout on Strategy and others. He co-authors the popular branding blog Branding Strategy Insider.

As a consultant he has guided such companies as AT&T, IBM, Burger King, Merrill Lynch, Xerox, Merck, Lotus, Ericsson, Tetra Pak, Repsol, Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble, Southwest Airlines and several other Fortune 500 companies. Recently, he consulted with the U.S. State Department on how to better sell America.

Recognized as one the world’s foremost marketing strategists, Jack is the originator of Positioning and other important concepts in marketing strategy. He has over 40 years of experience in advertising and marketing and is a boardroom advisor to some of the world’s largest corporations. Jack has gained an international reputation as a consultant, writer, speaker, and proponent of leading-edge marketing strategies.

Derrick Daye
Derrick has spent the past 25+ years helping organizations release the full potential of their brands. His experience is as extensive as it is diverse, encompassing the disciplines of brand strategy, advertising, sales promotion, and public relations. As a strategist he takes brands in all stages of growth and in numerous business categories on strategic searching journeys aimed at increasing their value, releasing their full potential and arriving at new and optimistic decisions about their competitive future.

Prior to launching The Blake Project brand consultancy in 2003, Derrick held rewarding leadership roles at global advertising agency leader Saatchi & Saatchi as well as at three other respected advertising agencies. He credits his focus on brand strategy with his ability to align organizations with unmet customer needs. He has led and co-led the brand strategy effort for many respected B2C and B2B brands, including Abbott Vascular, EA Sports, FootJoy, Intel, LexisNexis, Nestle, Southwest Airlines and Wyndham Hotels Worldwide.

Derrick’s emphasis as Managing Partner has been to push the limits of what an independent, strategic brand consultancy can lend toward industry innovation. In 2006 he conceptualized and launched Branding Strategy Insider to help marketing oriented leaders and professionals build strong brands. Today his vision serves 50,000+ marketers daily and is recognized by Advertising Age as the leading online resource for brand strategy and management.

His quest to better equip marketers for the challenges of an over-communicated marketplace led to the creation of The Un-Conference: 360° of Brand Strategy for a Changing World. A unique, competitive-learning experience that features marketers competing in a team environment, working together to gain the tools and techniques needed to face the real-world marketing issues of the day. As in the marketplace, some will win. Some will lose. All will learn™.

Derrick is a widely sought-after speaker and keynotes at major conferences around the globe. He is a guest lecturer at major universities such as USC and UCLA and is quoted regularly in the business press in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Adweek, Yahoo News, BusinessWeek, Inc. Magazine, London Times and has been a nationally featured brand management expert on ABC News.

Most notably, he has worked with The White House Press Corps, Coca-Cola and helped the National Parks of New York Harbor, arrive at new and optimistic decisions about the Statue of Liberty’s competitive future.

Derrick earned an MBA from the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business

Mark Ritson
Mark has a Ph.D. in Marketing and has been a faculty member at some of the world’s leading business schools. He has taught MBA courses in brand management at London Business School, MIT Sloan, the University of Minnesota and the University of Melbourne in Australia – where he is an Associate Professor of Marketing. He is an acclaimed MBA instructor having won the teaching prize at all three of his last schools: LBS (2002), MBS (2008, 2009), MIT (2009).

Mark has worked extensively as a consultant for some of the largest brands in the world. His clients include McKinsey, adidas, PepsiCo, Glaxo SmithKline, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, De Beers, Ericsson and WD40. For eight years he has also served as advisor and in-house professor for LVMH – the world’s largest luxury group – working with senior executives from brands like Louis Vuitton, Dom Perignon, Fendi, Tag Heuer, Dior and Hennessy. In a recent national survey in the UK he was voted one of the country’s most admired marketers.

An avid writer on branding, his prize winning thought pieces on the topic appear on Branding Strategy Insider and in London’s leading trade magazine, Marketing.  In 2009 he won Columnist of the Year in the British press awards, for his branding column. His more scholarly publications include articles published in Sloan Management Review, Harvard Business Review and the Journal of Consumer Research. Ritson won the 2000 Ferber Award, one of the most prestigious prizes in marketing, for his Ph.D dissertation on the social uses of advertising. His research on pricing was recently cited in the acceptance speech of the winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Register Now for the World’s Leading Accredited Mini MBA in Marketing and Brand Management Courses by Professor Mark Ritson.

The Blake Project Can Help: The Brand Positioning Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

6 comments

  • Matt Daniels

    July 24, 2009 at 8:38 pm

    GM has had a revolving door of consultants recommending every brand strategy one can fathom. what would you recommend that these execs don’t already know and understand?

  • Derrick Daye

    July 25, 2009 at 4:46 pm

    Hi Matt,

    Jack has some preliminary thoughts here:

    https://brandingstrategyinsider.com/2009/07/new-brand-strategies-for-gm.html

    It’s important to have some ideas based on what you know but not to assume anything. We don’t know what they already know and/or understand. The ‘Guru’ mindset is all assuming. Our approach is collaborative – it has to be to achieve the best results.

    I see you work at Prophet. What would you recommend to GM?

    Best,

    Derrick

  • Matt Daniels

    July 26, 2009 at 2:22 pm

    Hi Derrick,

    Thanks for the response.

    You’re right–I can’t assume that GM execs are all-knowing.

    But it seems to me that in past 20 years, every type of consultant, from a brand-strategy firm to McKinsey has likely had a chance to re-invent GM.

    People have pointed to lack of differentiation among their portfolio, but this was the consequence of many factors, particularly their dealership network and state laws prohibiting the elimination of a brand.

    Now that GM is down to 4(?) brands, execs can focus more and remove operational redundancies. But in my opinion, I can’t possibly fathom what another brand-strategy project would do for GM. Will another segmentation and positioning report really make any difference to turn the company around before collapse?

    With limited funding, I imagine that investing in tactical initiatives and product development will support GM far longer than a consulting gig to create differentiated “words” for each brand.

    You mentioned being collaborative…could you clarify?

  • Brad VanAuken

    July 27, 2009 at 10:49 am

    I agree with you, Matt. GM has used many consultants in the past and its problems extend well beyond branding. Tactical initiatives and product development will be key to their future success, but so will sound business strategies and intense, disciplined focus. We are offering one day of free brainpower on the topic – no more, no less. And we will be thinking far less about “differentiating ‘words’ for each brand” than we will about brand and marketing strategy as it relates to business model and strategy overall. If I were GM, I would take us up on the offer.

  • Lee Conn

    July 28, 2009 at 5:10 pm

    Derrick, great offer to GM. Tell you what, our company, Motus Motorcycles would love to take you up on your generous offer. GM has made our concept possible because we have leveraged the collapse of the US auto industry to help us build the first American sport touring motorcycle. We have retained Tier 1 R&D companies to do our development and dramatically subsidize the costs. This would have been impossible 5 years ago, but strange times make strange bedfellows… Beside developing a next-generation eco friendly sport tourer, Motus is the antedote to the current malaise. We call it- the Comeback.

    I’ll sweeten the deal even more, though, How about we even come to you for a 1/2 day review of our marketing/ branding strategy?

    Remiss not to ask,

    Lee Conn
    President
    Motus Motorcycles

  • Matt Gassen

    July 28, 2009 at 9:31 pm

    Mr. Daye:

    I read with great enthusiasm of your firm’s offer to GM. I have also made a similar public offer and believe that perhaps we could work together.

    Will you need any assistance/input?

    Thank you,
    Matt

    Matthew W. Gassen & Company
    Sustainability Refined

Comments are closed.

Connect With Us