GM might finally be making a smart business move in their latest press release revealing their desire to shrink their brand identity in North America to a few core brands. They currently control Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Daewoo, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Pontiac, Saab, and Saturn; their goal is to trim down until only Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC exist. This decision was announced at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show and is obviously due to the recent world wide credit crunch as well as their efforts to get a bailout package from the federal government.

Even within a specific brand there will be significant downsizing, Pontiac’s model lineup will be reduced to four cars: the G5, G8, Vibe, and Solstice (coupe and roadster versions). Another casualty of this downsizing will be dealers across the United States; their numbers will be reduced from 6,600 to 4,700 by 2012. In the announcement, they also revealed the possibility of Saturn being retained. However, this is contingent on negotiations taking place at the moment; Saturn has not been profitable in the majority of its active years but it has a valuable brand identity that could be beneficial down the road.

This decision looks like the company is moving in the right direction but is a bit hard for a non GM enthusiast to understand. Why are they keeping both Buick and Cadillac around? Are old people purchasing Buick Lacrosse’s in such numbers that they can float a separate brand all by themselves? Yes, I agree that the new marketing strategy that Buick employs is fresh and may help shake brand stigmatism but why not just use that energy for Cadillac… after all if Buick becomes cool to younger people, wouldn’t it just become what Cadillac is?

At least it is better than the Mercury and Lincoln brand identity crisis over at Ford… who even has a clue what the target demographic for those two are anyways?

Killing off Saturn seems to be another point that seems counter intuitive. Saturn has firmly established itself as an option for those that just don’t care about their car. If you strictly just want to move from point A to point B and don’t care even slightly about style, then you have Saturn. It’s news to me that they have been operating at a loss, with just one year in the black (1993), since their inception. I see so many Saturns on the road every day; it’s amazing that they are not cashing in on that brand. They have been re branding European models for the last model year or so and should continue doing so to keep R&D costs down and quality up high.

Keeping GMC around is a no brainer, their SUV lineup is popular with the consumers and their trucks sell well to fleet buyers. Moving all the existing SUV and truck models to GMC, such as the Hummer H3 and the Buick Enclave, seems like a logical move.