GM’s $27 billion EV fervor has reached an inflection point. Not in actual new products, which are still in the pipeline, but in a transformation of the company’s image, including a new logo and major image/marketing campaign, to warm up the public to what’s coming (autonomously) down the electric superhighway.
“There are moments in history when everything changes. Inflection points. We believe such a point is upon us for the mass adoption of electric vehicles,” Deborah Wahl, GM’s global chief marketing officer”
I guess it’s time to stop with all the “GM Mark of Excellence” digs, and start digging the new, new GM.
Here’s a taste of what’s coming to your tv or device. The campaign features Malcolm Gladwell, author of “The Tipping Point,” professional surfer and shark attack survivor Bethany Hamilton, fitness instructor Cody Rigsby and gamer Erin A. Simon. And the usual endless cutaways of regular folks like you and me in all sorts of idealized settings synchronized to the script. Just who did this kind of thing first? Sorry, but it’s getting a bit old. In fact, I’ve become very allergic to this kind of thing. But that’s just me…
“ ’Everybody In’ demonstrates our intent to lead, while inviting others — policymakers, partners, individuals — to play an active role in moving society forward, whether that’s helping to expand infrastructure, advocating for progress in their communities or simply taking an EV for a test drive to learn about the benefits of EV ownership,” Wahl said.
I rather liked this one from 1996 better, for GM’s first electric car, the EV1. Hard to believe that’s now 25 years ago. I’m probably on the spectrum, since I seem to like appliances coming to life better than actors mouthing… corporate propaganda.
Getting back to the present, GM says that the new logo is “vibrant blue to signify the clean skies of a zero-emissions future”. Naturally. And the “m” is underlined to create the shape of an electrical plug within the negative space. I thought it was to represent the Ultium battery pack underpinning all of the 30 some EVs that will be emitted from GM’s factories in the coming some years. But in that case, it should have been longer, underneath both letters.
The new logo is intended to be “less severe” than the current one. Lower case letters are “More approachable”.
“We felt a real need to show the world a different aspect of what the company is. The lower case was a key part of that”, Wahl said.
of course. upper case letters are so 20th century. soon nobody will use them anymore. very unapproachable.
so what ever happened to hydrogen? i thought that was going to be the future for gm.
And yet there’s still zero action, by anyone, to provide a place to charge these cars in the city.
Usually when I say this, somebody sends me a screenshot from some app that shows chargers everywhere. Yeah, all of those are in corporate parking lots, private apartment buildings/hotels, and pay-by-the-hour garages. Not practical.
This may very well be the case on the West Coast and major metropolitan areas like NYC or Chicago. But smaller markets have a wide variety of EV charge stations readily accessible to anyone. For example, many Walgreens stores have charge stations (albeit quite pricey).
The underground parking in my Vancouver BC apartment has ten level 2 chargers.
Petro-Canada already has a coast to coast ability.
Die hard GM fan, or should I say, was…. Very disappointing to me but it is what it is. I’ll savor in the auto’s of past.
Even a late adopter like me knows that there is period of transition. I think that there will be a mix of different propulsion types available for quite a while. Electrics don’t work for everyone’s situation right now. In my cul de sac there are three electrics. Let’s see what GM can do.
Someone I know who works at the Spring Hill plant said they will be building Hondas in the future (forget the timeframe). Reminds me of NUMMI. They were of the mind that long-term GM employees might take umbrage…
Found an article on it – it’s an Acura-branded EV they’ll be manufacturing at Spring Hill: https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/gm-build-honda-ev-mexico-acura-ev-tenn-sources-say
Their former logo always misspelt the term on everything including their advertising:
It is actually: GM Mark of Excrement
Beautiful vehicles built with the cheapest/shittiest parts.
This former GM fanboy says, not me, ain’t falling for ‘another new & improved’ GM. Not again.
“Oh come on baby. I won’t do it again. I’ve changed.”
LOL
well okay, sweetie, snuggle, snuggle
LMAO
The classic line of the abuser to the abused
Yeah. Parents had GMs for five decades. Almost all had expensive problems early. Mom had a GM card balance she wasn’t going to use. She’d finally had enough & bought a Honda. I thought the Gen 2 Cruze would be a nice car. Now I’m putting premium in it hoping it won’t lose a piston as so many have. And now I learn that the clutch slave cylinder (inside the bell housing) is made of plastic and fails, spreading debris throughout the clutch AND brake system. Fool me twice, shame on me.
..spreading debris throughout the clutch and brake system (shared reservoir) AND leaving the occupants STRANDED. DEADLY SIN #5458478
I’m hoping, as the owner of a 2019 Cruze with a six speed auto, that the aforementioned clutch slave cylinder is for the manual transmission! I already feed mine mid-grade in the fall and winter and premium in the spring and summer as 87 octane is too damn low IMO for something with a turbo, despite the owner’s manual saying 87 is fine.
GF has a 2011 Cruze with 160,000 on it. The only problem she’s had so far was a bad water pump (replaced free under a special Chevy warranty at 149,200) and a weeping valve cover, fixed with a $20 gasket.
I live in a dense neighborhood of row houses with street parking in NJ (No garages public or private, or driveways anywhere) I never park in the same spot twice, just wherever I can find a spot. I haven’t seen one electric vehicle in my neighborhood ever, because there’s absolutely nowhere to plug one in. I don’t see any solution to this other than the city installing a bunch of street chargers (unlikely) or perhaps charging stations getting to the prevalence and ease of refilling of a gas station. I can’t see anyone in my neighborhood ever buying an EV until solutions have been implemented for the charging problem.
A friend of mine in Vancouver bought a used VW eGolf last year – a generation back so the range isn’t great, but it’s fine for going around the city. He lives in an apartment building so charges it at on-street facilities, and it meets his needs.
It wouldn’t work for everyone, but it’s not impossible.
If the new GM (sorry, gm) logo is flipped upside down, it could be the new Warner Brothers logo, since clearly all companies should transition to lower case letters and invite policymakers to join then in a partnership.
WB debuted their redesigned logo last year, to a similar shade of Happy Blue, which I guess is the latest thing. Well, at least it’s not gray. Personally, I don’t watch Warner Bros. movies because their corporate image comes off as non-approachable… lower case logo letters would completely change my mindset.
Am I the only one who sees an elephant standing on a little platform?
Gaaah! Now I can’t unsee it!
Haha, now I can’t un-see that!
Looks like the top half of the logo delaminated or got worn off – GM quality strikes a new generation.
The video was interesting – many may remember GM foreshadowed the new Ultium platform with the 2002 AUTOnomy skateboard concept.
A three-legged elephant no less. Though arguably three legs are more stable than four.
So are you saying this elephant on a platform could end up being gm’s elephant in the living room? Or something like that…
Well I guess we now know that the mark of excrements goes on the right side.
Not now you aren’t!
I’m glad I’d swallowed that mouthful of coffee before I read that!
Elephant symbolic of what they used to be? Little platform symbolic of their (comparatively) tiny market share nowadays? 🙂
No, I saw it too. And in typeface terms, he’s facing the “wrong” way, looking backwards, as it were.
Probably says more truth than it meant to.
What a stupid logo — I wonder how many millions were spent on coming up with the design. GM long ago gave up its leadership — nothing beyond the 70s is particularly noteworthy. It was all downhill starting with X-car debacle and Roger Smith.
What a stupid logo? Don’t you like elephants?
Well, not to be missed in the re-branding, Burger King announced yesterday that they have a new logo too!
I’d rather do business with Burger King. Yes, I’d like fries with that.
BK has gotten noticeably worse in the past few years. I don’t eat there anymore.
Seems like there is a missed opportunity here to make the G or the M, or both, into more of a plug and outlet…..
That’s neat, and was done 50 years ago with Ontario Hydro. But you may recall GMs first electric car used induction charging and did not have a conventional plug.
I understand the logo I think, from a company where once was said what’s good for GM is good for the world, the once so proud capital letters have been changed for normal ones, sort of humble pie, who would ever believe 25 years ago GM or gm as of now were to sell Opel to Peugeot .
I predict GM is going to fail, its chairman is not Musk, and the company is not set up to be a new economy company like Tesla. Acting as arm chair CEO, I would follow Ford step to eliminate car production and build only pickup trucks with large internal combustion engine, get the company as profit as possible. Gradually take down and eliminate the legacy labor costs. On side setting up a engineering company with VC backings concentrating on vehicle design except the electric drive train and battery technology to tailor need of any potential EV makers, there will be a lot of them coming up soon. — I make assumptions that GM really knows how to design a vehicle. This gives GM a chance transforming itself into a engineering company, knowledge base economic sector and moving away to make vehicles from ground up to after sale warranty and safety recall. In my views building GM EV with 100% in-house development and manufacturing will not work in today US, GM also doesn’t have a good record to carry out large projects successfully in last few decades.
Side note here is GM should notice Toyota, arguably the best and most profitable vehicle company in this earth continues sitting on sideline. It continues believing if EV were the future it is in the fuel cell form, no lithium battery, it has the second generation of fuel cell car this year. More its chairman openly questioned whether there is enough electricity generation capacity in Japan to support EV power if Japanese government bans internal combustion engine in 2035 — i made similar arguments on this site before, Elon Musk recently questioned the generating capacity too.
Ford is building the all-electric Mustang Mach E, and hybrid versions of its F-150, Escape/Corsair and Explorer/Aviator.
The vast majority of rare earth metals used to make permanent magnet-based EV motors comes from China. The demand for neodymium, dysprosium, and praseodymium means we get EVs only by dint of vicious, brutal ethnic enslavement employed by that country. Here’s hoping manufacturers can switch to copper induction motors and/or other less vicious countries start mining and processing rare earths.
I don’t buy from companies too insecure to capitalize their own damn names.
It’s a good thing tall vehicles are back in fashion, because that’s a mighty high skateboard. Harley Earl spins in his grave.
This new GM logo’s overall look must be the new aesthetic trend. The college where I teach just went from this rather classical looking one . . .
. . . to this. It’s a lot less formal. I guess the green represents concern for the environment.
That CCM logo bring me some flashbacks of CCM a former bike manufacturer.
https://www.logo.wine/logo/CCM_(bicycle_company)
CCM was also a British motorcycle manufacturer.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clews_Competition_Motorcycles
A different CCM, here in Canada it was known as Canada Cycle & Motor Co. Ltd who split in 2 parts. One as the bicycle company and the 2nd part for ice hockey equipment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCM_(ice_hockey)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCM_(bicycle_company)
Eek… that’s awful; the only thing worse would be if your college’s logo contained an emoji. gm’s new design is stellar by comparison.
At least GM did better than Lucent, with their “coffee stain” logo.
That reminds me of the line workers I knew at the Toyota Cambridge plant. They called the Toyota logo ” The Three Rings of Satan. “
Suddenly, it’s 1955!
Ha!
I immediately thought of the old 3m logo too.
Apparently 3M had about 20 logos before that one, none of which I’d ever seen.
I just love how all these electric cars are supposed to be powered by daisies, gender-fluid nymphs and butterflies. Where I live, electricity comes from coal. More electric cars – more coal. They might just as well comes with an old railroad fireman to shovel it in.
And can you say sanctimonious? With the exception of the sign painter and pottery artist looking up at you and the young lady with the headset – everyone else is literally looking down at you as though you are a child. Even the whispering child is at your eye-level, telling you her kid-secret. And what is that “secret”? Something we’ve been told since Edison showed us an incandescent bulb 145 years ago. Looks like the ad convinced that little girl for now, huh?
GM, or I mean, gm – looks like it is ashamed of itself. Will the next ad from them be apologies for building internal combustion engines? Will the next ad tell us that they feel guilty that their rides weren’t created by honeybees and dragonflies?
“change”, says the skinny man in black.
“if you resist it, you will be left behind”, he explains.
“or embrace it, and move forward”, he looks down at us and intones.
(Yes, you are correct, this was similarly said about the X cars.)
“we, We, WE ARE GENERATION E!”, the little white pixie exclaims!
“we are defined by the desire to be – smart – clean – and safe!”
(Yes – that is what I want in a – um – car?)
I guess I’m too old to fool anymore, sigh!
Something tells me you’re not gm’s target market 😉
We need to save the oil for the military.
Those B-52s suck up those petrosaurs at the rate of 3,300 gallons per hour! If they re-engine it, that might go down by a third. They can’t put 4 big efficient engines like the ones on the 787 on it because of reduced rudder authority if they lose an engine on takeoff, so they’ll stay with 8.
Even if electricity is derived from coal in your area, it’s still much cleaner to drive an EV than an ICE-powered car, as the conversion to electricity is done in bulk rather than one car at a time amongst other things.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2020/03/30/yes-electric-cars-are-cleaner-even-when-the-power-comes-from-coal
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/electric-cars-better-for-climate-in-95-of-the-world
Whenever a company changes a logo like this it reeks of desperation to me, focus on the aesthetics of your cars, or lack there of
Agreed. Generally speaking (no pun intended), successful companies don’t change their logos.
I don’t agree with that. I’m pressed to think of any long-term successful companies that haven’t changed their logos. Even Mercedes, BMW and VW have made changes to theirs several times.
It’s perfectly appropriate to update logos. But the quality of the change is always the key issue.
Yeah I think quality as well as timing are important. I didn’t like when Dunkin Donuts changed their logo to just Dunkin’, but it fit their brand and seemed to work for them. In contrast Radio Shack rebranding as The Shack just seemed like another sad shallow move from a terminal company.
This new GM logo reminds me of the latter, and reeks of trying to be “with it” with tech. It looks like it’s trying to be an app logo, in fact I swear I’ve seen a half dozen logos in the AppStore with that font and teal to blue fade, it’s like GM had an intern run it through a free logo generator on the internet.
The move to lower-case letters in the new logo looks apologetic, “Sorry to intrude but here we are”. Like Mitsubishi Australia’s curious tagline of some twenty years ago, “Please Consider”.
Have they had a belated attack of humility following their massive fall in market share and subsequent bankruptcy, and think they’re not worthy of capitalization any more? I’m sure many former customers would agree.
The time for changing the logo was immediately after the bankruptcy, if they really wanted to be thought of as a ‘new GM’. Now it just smacks of desperation.
Any company looking to change an iconic logo should watch this Saul Bass video –
GM didn’t evolve their logo in a thoughtful way in my opinion. Much like a bad radio station trying to convince listeners it doesn’t suck by tacking on “THE NEW” in front of it’s existing name, this looks like a desperate effort to appear with it without doing anything of substance.
Look for the new GM to end up where the old GM did…
No, but wait, but see, the guy in charge of the logo redesign committee has a kid, and the kid is really good in art class. Either that, or Doris—who has been the committee-guy’s secretary for a good, solid three years now—Doris did it in Microsoft Word.
That’s a great little film! Thanks for suggesting it.
Fascinating video! I’m assuming it was made around 1970 based on the colors, fashions, graphics, music, and of course the cars.
One thing they didn’t anticipate: telephone “men” and telephone “girls” would become dated just about faster than anything else, along with the breakup of Ma Bell.
The old-livery cars are ’68 Valiants. The new-livery cars are ’69 Valiants.
Good catch! I was so close.
What a time capsule…the opening ten minutes by itself is must-watch and has much to speak to us as a society today.
Interesting how many fast food companies, most recently Burger King, have gone back to older logos, probably playing off the “comfort & nostalgia” component of their brands. Considering the times, it’s hard to blame them.
Personally, I’d have kept the old logo that originated around 1965 and has lived with only evolutional changes since then.
GM’s new logo will ultimately be judged by the quality of the vehicles built under it. My hope is that they get that part of it right.
Google “clever logos” and you get dozens of brilliant examples. Unless we’ve missed something, gm lost an opportunity to do something extra here, style, message or hidden meaning.. … other than the elephant.
I agree with this logo bashing. What up with these wacky focus groups and company boards? Gees people we gotta brain storm this problem we have. Whats the problem? Less people are buying our products. OK, Brainstorm here, we need a new logo? Roger, thats a great idea. Whats that Karen, it should be blue or green? Ernie says it should be lower case lettering, thats whats trending now. OK, get our ad firm on this right away. OK whats on the agenda next?
MNDOT – Minnesota Department of Transportation is on their 3rd logo for vehicles in the last ten years. Roads don’t seem any better and its still snowing.
Lower case casual.
“gm” stands for gram in scientific notation.
More weight slashed than in the Great Downsize!
Shades of 1980 when GM introduced their “X” cars in their push to go front-drive, unibody on a mass scale instead of the traditional rear drive, body on frame construction? No thanks, GM. I’ll gladly keep both of my internal combustion gasoline engined vehicles. With the state of technology today, current gasoline engines are pretty damn efficient. Not to mention the relatively low price of gasoline.
Don’t know how accurate, but still a very nice analogy with the new FWD 1980 X-cars.
Not currently possible to supply enough electricity to power a U.S. full of elec cars, but that won’t stop the idiotic regulations coming from the idiots. Fire up those coal-powered plants again, you ignorant La-La-Landers!
Just imagine at the height of the summer July -September when the heat makes home A/C usage so heavy that we have rolling blackouts. And the huge electric bills to keep those things charged up.
EV’s a generally charged at night, when demand is low.
My first career job was with a major regional bank. Around 1971, they changed their logo to using all lower case letters. A sign of the times, they thought it made the company seem more accessible and less stuffy (Ha!).
I always thought the logo looked weak chinned. Around 2002, they mercifully made the first letter of each word a capital again. It looked a thousand times better on on the branch bank signs, marketing material etc.
What goes around………last year they went back to all lower case letters.
Undoubtedly their marketing consultants and the local sign makers are out buying new cars.
This makes KIA’s recent logo change look absolutely bearing in comparison.
I’m bullish on electric cars, GM not so much.
The lower case letters look weak. They hint at the bankruptcy they’ve been through and even though they are no longer strong enough to have capitol letters in their logo, they are moving on in their weakened market position. e.e. cummings would approve.
All this logo change reminds me of the design for the 1996 Olympics mascot in Atlanta.
After several failures, “Izzy” as it was known, was often referred to as “WhatIsZit”
LOL!! 🙂
I had no idea lowercase letters were a thing until today, I feel like changing my screen name to JonCo43, but I can’t be bothered, and it doesn’t look right anyway.
Sad to see another once proud logo biting the dust.
I wonder if general motors will be tacking their new logo on the front fenders off all the vehicles they sell like they did back in the mid 2000’s. Unfortunately I can’t remember the exact years they did that….
Does this mean I have to denigrate GM in lower case going forward?
Since GM was already around after World War One,maybe they ought to remember what happened to electrics when buyers voted with their wallets.
It’s a masterpiece of corporate communication – denoting a company that’s shrunken version of its former self, with diminishing access to capital(s).
The real work is likely being done on a logo for Ultium, Inc. The logo for the new EV spinoff will be launched in conjunction with a major IPO, with gm being jettisoned for burnup like a non-reusable booster.
Interesting points.
Coincidence?
I’m not in. I will never buy an electric car.
Oh, fair dinkum! What a pile of patronizing piffle.
Has anybody in the history of ever been moved to purchase something by the sort of one-world-let’s-all-hold-hands-portentious propagandizing in that ad?
Anyway, the very semantics offended me: a “..generation united not by age..” is just a non-sequitur, some drooling marketeer genius’ triumph of idiocy over English, and I stopped listening after that.
And can you even comprehend the emptiness of mind and deceasement of spirit, the dried husk-like contents of the heads of those who met and spent actual time in serious contemplation of whether or not a capital letter is a threatening thing?
When Better Meetings are Held, GM will Hold Them.
Spare me.
I flippin hate the trend toward lowercase letters and no all caps. Especially now that it is mandated on most street signs in America. I have astigmatism — it’s impossible for me to read a lot of street signs these days. It’s all based on some random study that people recognize lowercase letters better. Le sigh.
As we fall so does General Motors with the little wimpy inoffensive g. Oh wait GM has been in free fall for what the past 30 plus years and this big woke move to all electrics is just another in a long line of the next big GM thing that probably won’t amount to much anytime soon. Since they have eliminated any car that I would have been interested in for a future purchase I will be buying from another company so no Marry Barra I’m not in!