GM Asks Properties: What Can You Do For Detroit?
Chrissie Thompson of the Detroit Free Press recently profiled how GM's top marketers, Joel Ewanick and Mark Reuss, have have used the company's "it's the right thing to do" pitch to motivate new employees and business partners to get serious about reviving GM's hometown of Detroit.
Reuss used the same pitch to recruit Ewanick away from Nissan, telling him "Dude, you have to do this," said Reuss, GM's North American president, according to Ewanick. "This is the right thing to do."
After Ewanick was on board, according to the piece, he flew to San Francisco to meet with one of GM's ad agencies, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, and pitch them on opening up a Detroit office.
According to Thompson, it worked.
"After he spoke, employees were volunteering to move to Detroit, said Jeff Goodby, the agency's co-chairman and creative director. And now that the agency has chosen a downtown location in the Francis Palms building, which holds the Fillmore theater, employees have approached the Detroit School of Arts about teaching a class that would help students create their own public service announcements for television."
Ewanick did the same with Cadillac agency, Fallon, which has since opened an office in GM's downtown Detroit headquarters.
Now, Ewanick and GM are seeking companies willing to invest in Detroit as a result of landing sponsorship from a GM brand.
When GM marketers are booking new sponsorships for GM brands, they now ask how companies can help invest in Detroit in return, such as shooting a TV show in the area, Ewanick told Thompson.
Read "GM marketing chief leads effort to bring companies to Detroit" here.
