6799: There Is No Great White Hope For GM.

Wanted to spend a little more time examining the General Motors scenario and its implications for minority advertising agencies.

New York Post reporter Holly Sanders Ware wrote that General Motors’ AORs “are hoping to be included on a court-approved list of ‘critical vendors’ that will receive timely payments for their work while GM winds its way through bankruptcy.” Um, why? One could easily argue the White agencies have blundered along with the automaker, consistently failing to spark consumer interest for vehicles. President Barack Obama saw fit to fire GM honcho Rick Wagoner. Would the Commander-In-Chief really want to continue down the same road with marketing dinosaurs that have shown an inability to change and deliver fresh ideas—in addition to demonstrating an adversity to diversity?

Are GM’s minority shops even under consideration for “critical vendors” status? Based on the way GM has treated them in recent years, it’s highly unlikely. Let’s remember that the automaker has shifted accounts traditionally handled by multicultural experts and reassigned the work to White guys. Ironically, General Motors decided to completely dump its Asian-American ad partners, yet sold Hummer to a Chinese company. Nice.

MultiCultClassics has repeatedly recommended that GM should name a minority shop to lead a brand. The automaker is now declaring, “Reinvention is the only way we can fix this.” So reinvent already.