An interesting article I found on Harvard Business Online which reviews the auto industry crisis from a different perspective.

About the author, John Quelch: John Quelch was one of ten marketing experts profiled in the 2007 book, Conversations with Marketing Masters, authored by Laura Mazur and Louella Miles. A professor at Harvard Business School since 1979, he is known worldwide for his research on global marketing, global branding and marketing communications.

John is a non-executive director of WPP Group plc, the world’s second largest marketing services company, and of Pepsi Bottling Group. He served previously as a director of Reebok International.

"In a fascinating mea culpa, General Motors has finally discovered the consumer (also known as the taxpayer). Desperate to achieve bailout funding, GM admitted in a December 8 advertisement titled "GM's Commitment to the American People" that it had "disappointed", sometimes even "violated" the "trust" of American consumers. The advertisement went unsigned and was published only in Automotive News.

I support loaning money to GM to keep the company afloat. The state of the US economy is too perilous at this time to contemplate the alternative. But I am far from convinced that my tax dollars will be well-invested.

Sadly, this year marks General Motors 100th anniversary. A proud - perhaps too proud - company that lost its way in the global marketplace. Perhaps the current crisis will galvanize the forces of change. Or perhaps the weaknesses in the company's culture - specifically, the lack of consistent attention to excellence in design , in marketing and in product quality - are simply too endemic."

Read Mr. Quelch's blog post in full at the URL below, including his itemized list of reasons GM failed from a marketing perspective.

http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/quelch/2008/12/how_general_motors_viola...