GM's marketing leader reversed a trend of outsourcing key functions. He argued that relying too heavily on agencies underdeveloped internal skills, making the company slow and unaccountable. Bringing capabilities in-house, while challenging, was essential for transformation and agility.
To gain the CFO's confidence, GM's marketing head involved the CFO's team in the steering committee for developing the marketing plan. This transparency and disciplined approach built a strong partnership and prevented budget cuts driven by misunderstanding.
GM's marketing chief advises leaders to balance high-level strategy with deep, hands-on involvement in the daily work. This "hands in the kitchen sink" approach ensures leaders stay grounded and connected to the realities of execution, which is critical for agility during periods of transformation.
GM created a tiered agency structure. A "foundational" agency handles high-volume, operational production work (the "60%"). This frees up smaller, specialized creative agencies for each brand to focus solely on distinctive, compelling creative without getting buried in executional tasks.
A key leadership trait of GM CEO Mary Barra is her practice of making herself "not the center of attention" in meetings. This intentional act brings out more voices and creates a more collaborative, less hierarchical environment where a wider range of ideas can be shared.
GM's CMO warns that AI in creative often produces average results because it finds the "most likely next answer," reflecting the category norm, not a distinctive brand voice. Simple edits can also trigger a full re-render, introducing new errors and creating more work.
Instead of vague sales correlations, GM marketing's success is tied to two specific outcomes: being in a car buyer's initial consideration set and winning the subsequent shopping journey. This provides clear, measurable goals and removes ambiguity about marketing's contribution to the business.
At large companies, decisions often gravitate toward optimizing near-term financial results, which can subtly degrade customer experience and creativity. GM's marketing head suggests a key role of the CEO is to actively shield the long-term creative vision from these short-term pressures.
GM views car dealers as a primary source of customer insight, not just a sales channel. Dealers effectively run continuous A/B tests on messaging and can provide real-time feedback on what resonates with customers—what "makes their eye sparkle"—which is often more potent than formal research.