part the 524th.
Apparently Brian Akre has a full time job reading all news articles which portray General Motors in less-than-obsequious light. GM was unable (to my recollection) to browbeat the New York TImes into publishing letters-to-the-editor-upon-demand, but apparently the Nashua Telegraph (a 27,000 circulation newspaper located in New Hampshire, if you've never heard of this particular newspaper before) didn't have a strong enough will to resist General Motors distortions of the record.
To the Nashua Telegraph's credit, they allowed the original columnist to respond.
Here's parts of Tony Paradiso's response (click link to read entire thing)
Nashuatelegraph.com: Columnist does research, responds to letter from General Motors
The letter authored by Brian Akre, GM’s corporate communication minion, was titled “Columnist should do more research.” In case you missed it, General Motors took umbrage with my portrayal of its less than stellar July sales results.Needless to say, I disagree with most, but not all, of the letter’s content....As Mr. Akre stated, General Motors increased its market share in July. That makes one month in a row.
Citing that tidbit is known as “cherry picking” the data.
In the 1950s, GM owed 46 percent of the U.S. market. Sadly, for a generation the company has steadily lost share.
From 1994-98, current CEO Rick Wagoner ran GM’s North American operation. During that time, the company improved its profitability but saw its share decline from 33 percent to 30 percent. For that, Mr. Wagoner was promoted to president and chief operating officer.
By the first quarter of 2005, GM’s North American market share had slid to 25.2 percent, down from 26.3 percent in Q1 of 2004.
Given this, one could logically conclude that citing a one-month blip was a bit misleading.
Tags: Advertising, /GM, /media
