general motors

AT&T, General Motors to sell 4G LTE-connected cars next year

BARCELONA, Spain--General Motors cars rocking their own 4G LTE connection will hit the road next year.

AT&T and GM's OnStar service unit struck a deal to bring millions of connected cars to the market, starting with the 2015 fleet, which comes out late 2014. GM said most Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac cars will get wireless connections.

It's the latest win for AT&T, which has been particularly aggressive in going after the connected car business, a lucrative one in which the company believes it can eventually generate a billion dollars in revenue. Furthermore, the … Read more

Siri to make automobile debut on Chevy Spark, Sonic

Siri's full functionality is coming to two Chevrolet cars next year, General Motors announced today at the Los Angeles International Auto Show.

Siri will be available to customers who buy the Chevrolet Spark and Sonic. The virtual personal assistant connects wirelessly with the Chevy MyLink infotainment system and allows people with the iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 with iOS 6 to perform a host of Siri-related tasks.

According to Chevrolet, Siri will be available in Eyes Free mode, letting users make voice-activated calls, access their calendars, and listen to and compose text messages. However, Eyes Free mode won't … Read more

The Chevy Volt: Dead or alive?

Depending on who you believe, the Volt is either alive and kickin' or in its death throes.

The most recent news about GM's plug-in hybrid gives fodder to both sides. On the upside, GM said on Wednesday that it already has sold more than 2,500 Volts this month. That would be a monthly record, bringing the global total this year to about 13,000, according to reports.

But critics quickly jumped on another piece of news: GM's suspension of Volt production for four weeks.

That shutdown is attributed to a retooling of the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant where … Read more

Ad executive bashes Facebook advertising

The Facebook ad bashing continues. The social network is taking another hit regarding its advertising value, and this time it's from the head of the world's largest marketing group.

WPP CEO Sir Martin Sorrell said he has told Facebook that the social network is great for branding, but not advertising, the MediaGuardian reported today. The statement is another blow to Facebook's efforts to increase its advertising dollars, particularly because the money WPP spends on behalf of its clients accounts for nearly a third of the money spent annually through ad agencies worldwide. Sorrell made the remarks at … Read more

Facebook, GM in talks to rekindle ad relationship, report says

After a very public falling-out, Facebook and General Motors may be on the road to rekindling their advertising relationship, according to a new report.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing sources, that GM and Facebook are in talks to determine what it would take to bring the automobile company back to the social network's advertising platform. The Journal says that Facebook will give GM better data on how the company can increase ad effectiveness.

GM made waves back in May, just ahead of Facebook's IPO, when it decided to pull its $10 million ad campaign from Facebook, … Read more

Facebook not big on big ads

It seems there is more to the story about why General Motors ended its $10 million advertising campaign on Facebook last month.

General Motors asked Facebook if it was possible to run "bigger, higher-impact ad units," or full-page ads, versus the more subtle ads Facebook features, according to AdAge. Currently, companies can advertise through sponsored posts or small ads on the right side of pages.

Facebook, which traditionally opts for the user experience over advertising dollars, said no to the automaker, according to the report.

Publicly, GM has said that its Facebook advertising wasn't successful, while Facebook has said that GM ran a weak campaign. … Read more

The real prize for GM's EcoCar2 challenge? A job offer

In each of the three years of EcoCar2 Challenge, General Motors will give away approximately $100,000 in prizes to the students participating in the alternative fuels vehicle competition. But for some students, the real prize will be a steady paycheck.

Headliners GM and the Department of Energy, along with 25 suppliers, sponsor EcoCar2, a three-year alternative fuels vehicle competition, as a way to encourage college students to enter the automotive industry. It provides a chance for young engineers to apply the theoretical education they gain in the classroom in the lab, giving them an advantage when it comes to … Read more

GM and its Facebook ads: The knives are out

Yesterday, word broke that General Motors ended $10 million in Facebook ad spending after determining the ads didn't work for it. The timing of the original WSJ story on the subject was spectacular, coming as it did just three days before Facebook's IPO.

Now folks sympathetic to Facebook are firing back at the automaker, saying GM ran a lousy Facebook campaign and ignored the social network's advice. Which is not terribly surprising when you think about it, since the GM story has ignited a wider debate about the utility of corporate ad spending on Facebook at about … Read more

GM to yank $10M in Facebook ads, saying they don't work

General Motors will pull some $10 million in paid advertising from Facebook, the Wall Street Journal reported, striking a discordant note with the growing public frenzy over the social network's pending IPO.

GM marketing executives apparently started reviewing the company's Facebook strategy earlier this year, and eventually determined that it wasn't getting much mileage out of paid ads, unnamed individuals told the WSJ. The automaker, however, will continue to expand its use of free marketing on Facebook.

Marketing chief Joel Ewanick told the newspaper that GM "is definitely reassessing our advertising on Facebook, although the content … Read more