Chevy Cobalt is a winner despite poor marketing
BY WARREN BROWN/THE WASHINGTON POST
November 13, 2006
NOTE TO GENERAL MOTORS: Until public perception catches up with the improved quality of your products, there are two things you should do.

1. Avoid releasing any pre-production cars or trucks to the media. Pre-production models, those not certified for retail, are never your best samples. They represent an idea of what the market-ready car or truck will be. If, as often is the case, the pre-production model has a few ill-fitting pieces, the media get the impression that the product is a bad idea.

2. Even if it means offering steep discounts, sell only your best samples to rental-car fleets, which are where much of the public first comes in contact with your new cars and trucks. Yes, this will cost you money.

So what? You're already wasting hundreds of millions of marketing dollars annually giving consumers and dealers rebates - bribes - to buy cars and trucks you introduced the wrong way. It makes more sense to spend that money up front creating a good impression of vehicles than it does to spend it on the rear end in a self-defeating enterprise to get people to buy cars and trucks they don't want.

Those are my thoughts after spending a week and hundreds of miles in a 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt SS sedan. I like the little car. It is delightfully competitive with anything in its compact-size segment, or $13,000-to-$21,000 price range.

I drove it all over New York City and then drove it to my home in Virginia. That's a lot of seat time in a car, especially in what essentially is an economy automobile - enough time to form a lasting impression, which is this:

The Cobalt is a winner that GM introduced as a loser. A year or so ago, when GM brought the Cobalt line to the attention of the media, it rolled out pre-production samples with competent-to-downright-zippy 2-liter, 2.2-liter and 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. The front-wheel-drive Cobalt's styling was much improved over that of the Chevrolet Cavalier it replaced. But the interior pieces in the pre-production models didn't fit together all that well. And some of those plastic pieces were downright cheap.

GM compounded that error by shipping its most basic Cobalt samples to the rental-car companies, where the public first came in contact with the car. And the public was not impressed.

Thus disheartened, GM made another critical mistake. Disappointed by a failed, or less-than-spectacular, product launch, most meaningful advertising support for the Cobalt disappeared and was replaced by product-degrading, get-this-one-cheap spots.

In short, GM and Chevrolet, in the matter of bringing the Cobalt to the public's attention, goofed, and goofed badly.

Luckily, the market-ready car, particularly the upgraded SS version I've had so much fun driving, is much, much, much better than its marketing. For that matter, especially if automotive bang-for-the-buck can be translated to the most horsepower, fuel efficiency, safety and amenities for the least money spent, the Chevrolet Cobalt is as good as the current generations of the Honda Civic, Nissan Sentra or Toyota Corolla, if not better.

No, it's not better than the Mazda3. But neither is the Civic, nor the Corolla. The Mazda3 simply rocks this class.

But the Cobalt is a bona fide, worthy competitor. It would be nice if GM's marketing reflected that much.
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So my question is... How much do you think it hurt sales? if any? Do you Agree/Disagree ?

 

I agree whole-heartedly. I don't think i've seen ONE commerical for a Cobalt SS or SS/SC. If GM showed the public the top-of-the-line cars, their perception of the product would be translated through the whole Cobalt line-up. A much better strategy, IMO.

 

Thats weird cause i see them all the time, must be different marketing for different countrys etc...

 

true though when you see the rental cars,its usually the bottem-end cars there,and as many cobalt commercials I see they advertise the base also,but i have seen 4 different g5 commercials(same car) and pontiacs commercials are more exciting and each time they showed the gt and not the base

 

They've had plenty of Cobalt commercials on TV here in Chicago; I can think of about 3 or 4 different ones. The first and most memorable involved the Cobalt SS and a Corvette bouncing a basketball back and forth between them. There have also been billboards around town.

I was under the impression that the introduction of the Cobalt was made very slowly, which I just figured was to work the bugs out. The coupes, in particlular, hit the market very slowly, months after the sedans.

 

I have never seen a Cobalt commercial. I had to download one off the internet. Actually the only Chevrolet commercials I see advertise trucks and sometimes SUVs, but even that's a rare sighting. I do, however, know that they play the GM 100,000 mile powertrain warranty commercial frequently lol. Sadly, the majority of car commercials I see aren't US brands.

 

hahahahahaha that basketball one was funnnnnnnnny