General Motors is buying ads in the Los Angeles Times again (link).

GM stopped placing company ads in April after LAT automotive critic Dan Neil said GM should dismiss CEO Rick Wagoner.

Since then, as far as we can tell, Neil has mentioned GM vehicles once: in his non-automotive Sunday column several weeks ago, he briefly discussed the spectacular failure of the (now-dead) Pontiac Aztek.

Is the result of the “productive conversations” with GM that Neil can only write about discontinued products? That may work, since most of the current product line looks like they were designed for rental car fleets. No need to get Dan worked up again.

Or is a clue to the new relationship that when we type “General Motors” into the search box at LATimes.com, the #2 result is “Editorial Staff?” Perhaps Neil has a new … helper? From Detroit?

None of this “let’s agree to disagree” PR-speak obviates the truth of Neil’s April remarks that GM is a “morass of a business case.” GM can cover its ears, shut its eyes, and hum all it wants. But at $36, their current stock price is a little below where it was for much of the 1960’s. In the same period the Dow Jones Industrial Average has grown 16x.

That is serious underperformance. And Dan Neil didn’t cause it.

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Our attitude toward GM is evident in our post titles:

General Motors: “Head in Sand” or “Calm Before Chapter 11″

General Motors Announces Plan to Drag Down Its Brands

GM Throws A Tantrum

Technorati Tags: big business, general motors, gm, LA Times, LAT, Los Angeles Times, dan neil

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005 at 11:30 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Los Angeles Times, How Not To Succeed In Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.