GM Changes Agencies for Saturn

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The New York Times ...Jan. 31, 2007

General Motors, once reluctant to change agencies on its principal brands, is doing so for the second time in four months.

The Saturn division of GM is dismissing Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, part of the Omnicom Group, and shifting its creative account, with spending estimated at $200 million, to the Marina del Rey, Calif., office of Deutsch, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies. Goodby, Silverstein landed the assignment in 2002 from the agency now known as Publicis & Hal Riney, which helped GM introduce Saturn in 1990.

The shift was reported yesterday by Adweek.com and confirmed by executives with knowledge of the decision who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the matter before a formal announcement. A spokeswoman for Deutsch, Vonda LePage, referred calls to GM, where a spokeswoman, Ryndee Carney, said she could not comment until today.

The move represents an expansion in GM's relationship with Deutsch L.A., as the California office is known, which was added to the GM agency roster in November 2005 with creative assignments for Chevrolet. Deutsch L.A. is also creating ads intended to burnish the General Motors corporate image. In both instances, Deutsch L.A. is sharing those assignments with other Interpublic agencies.

Trade publications had speculated recently that GM may be unhappy with the work that Goodby, Silverstein was creating for Saturn because of perceptions that the ads did not sufficiently differentiate Saturn from competitors like Honda and Toyota.
For decades, General Motors had shown strong loyalty to its agencies - even in recent years, as its sales and market share declined. But since Deutsch L.A. was added to the GM roster, the company has been more aggressive in making changes.

The most notable change involved creative assignments for the Cadillac division, which were shifted last year in two stages to Modernista in Boston from Leo Burnett in Chicago. Burnett and predecessor agencies had created ads for Cadillac since 1936.

Modernista, which also creates ads for the GM Hummer brand, took over as the Cadillac creative agency of record last Oct. 1.