GM Steps into the Chevy Tahoe Debate

In case you missed it, Ed Peper, Chevrolet General Manager, posted a thoughtful blog post to the GM Fastlane blog regarding the Chevy Tahoe promotion that's been vetted out quite extensively in this blog. You be the judge.  One interesting note.  GM  (full disclosure: a client in my "official" job..although I'm not connected w/this campaign), unlike most major corporations, has a rapid-response "start the conversational" vehicle known as the FastLane blog that comes in handy in situations like this.  Blogs, recall, are all about establishing meaningful conversations with stakeholders, often in a rapid-response or real-time manner.  One huge factor working in GM's favor is that it can readily enter the conversation about difficult issues like this. Moreover, having been one of the first corporations to establish a blog (two years ago, I believe), it now has a huge base of highly viral (many influential) readers.   We may look back at this "episode" and credit GM more for not taking the usual corporate strategy of putting their head in the sand, or just tossing the campaign.  Instead, they engaged in the conversation.  Believe me, it's going to take MANY conversations before we figure out how to effectively advertise in an age of consumer control and consumer generated media.   As Joe Jaffe said so well at the end of our two-part podcast with Jackie Huba, I'll readily take the "good with the bad."