Corporate Bloopers 1 : Marketing Overdose : General Motors India

I have seen this print ad earlier. GM India’s head striking a pose and promising to the car buying public, guaranteeing certain maximum maintenance expenditure otherwise they will refund the excess spending, though last time they had an Indian President and Managing Director.

It struck me as funny that time too but didn’t have enough time to actually analyse the thing. Now that I am out in the market looking for a new car, I have given it some thought and here are my conclusions.

The ad promises maximum maintenance expenditure for 5 different models over a period of 3 years

Spark                          Rs. 12999.00             *approx = 13000.00

Aveo – UVA               Rs. 14999.00             *approx = 15000.00

Aveo                           Rs. 15999.00             *approx = 16000.00

Optra Magnum          Rs. 17999.00             *approx = 18000.00 

SRV (Petrol)              Rs. 17999.00             *approx = 18000.00

* approximate figures are my own.

The company still believes in optical illusions which makes 12999.00 appear as 12000.00 to people like us with deep pockets but shallow brains, but that is a different point altogether.

In fine print the ad also mentions that the expenditure does not cover accidents, natural disaster, racings, tyres, batteries etc…standard list of disclaimers that any self respecting company gives. 

Anybody who has kept a tab on maintenance expenditure should know that the maximum maintenance expenditures excluding the disclaimed list mentioned are too high. I have been running my 7 year old fiat palio and after 7 years it has yet to run up a maintenance expenditure of more than Rs. 2 -3 thousand in any given year, other than the disclaimed list of course.

Can you imagine a new vehicle like let us say Aveo- UVA running up a maintenance bill of Rs. 15000.00 in three years.  The company’s marketing honchos have in the same ad mentioned that the vehicles are covered by a 3 years/  100000 kilometre warranty.

Note that both the warranty and maintenance expenditure promise are for 3 years and run concurrently.

This leads me to wonder whether.

1.  Warranty does NOT cover anything so in spite of such a generous policy you can still run up a bill of Rs. 15000.00 in 3 years??

2.  The car is so shoddily built that it needs maintenance to the tune of 15000.0 other than what is already disclaimed and other than what is covered by warranty??

  

So what are they trying to accomplish here?? They have promised something, which they know will never happen so they will never need to pay, so without paying they can bask in the glory appearing to be such a caring company, a company confident about the quality of its products.

If what they say is true and you actually need to spend say somewhere around Rs. 14999.00 on maintaining an Aveo-UVA (other than disclaimed list), while the warranty is also running, then God help them and the poor guy who fell for the promise.

When will these guys grow up and get over the fine print and convoluted logic and promises, which don’t mean anything other than showing lack of ethics, knowledge, education and basic human decency? I wonder if they thought that a nice white American face promising us the sky will make us dance with joy and queue up at the nearest GM showroom.

Frankly they don’t have bad cars. I loved their Opel Astra and my friends who have bought Aveo are also happy, but get over it, come with something new and honest.