Investor Relations

In July 2009, the company filed for bankruptcy which undoubtedly lead to many turbulent changes in the company. The "old GM", or "General Motors Corporation" was bailed out by the government and is now considered the "new GM" or the "General Motors Company." Because of this, GM is no longer a publicly traded company. Under the "Investor Information" page on their website, GM has this webpage of FAQ's about the status of the company right now. The company does however post their annual SEC 10-K filings on their website, but considering it is no longer traded, there are no shareholders and therefore, no letter to the shareholders.

Instead of discussing how GM deals with their investors, I am going to look at how GM handled the bankruptcy of their company and what they did to overcome it. Analysts first thought that it would take GM at least 90 days to recover from bankruptcy, but in reality it only took 40 days. This was partially due to GM's PR people's very well executed "Reinvention" campaign.

The "reinvention" campaign launched a new website that incorporated all forms of social media with links, youtube videos, and blogs. The campaign spoke openly and honestly about the bankruptcy, which I personally think lead to it's success. People will always respect a company much more when they are able to fess up to their wrongdoings and speak candidly about what occurred. A good example of this is the 1986 Tylenol Johnson and Johnson incident. The company took complete blame for what happened, and they were able to recover much quickly than a company like Toyota who did not come forth as soon as bad news broke.

The "reinvention" campaign produced commercials and blog posts that pulled on consumers heartstrings about the hardworking individuals and the longstanding history of the company. Overall, the PR team at GM did the right thing is creating a campaign to change the face of GM and gain back customers trust and faith.

Community Relations

GM, and just about every other car company lately, is mostly focused on the environment and creating "green" cars that are good to the planet. To begin with, GM is one of the biggest culprits of the gas-guzzling SUV's and trucks with models such as Hummers, Cadillac Escalades, and Chevy trucks. It would only make sense for GM's main focus to be on the environment and creating earth-friendly cars.

GM has their "Environmental Commitment" which is all about creating greener, more economically friendly vehicles. I think this is an important idea since GM just celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Suburban, the first SUV ever made. Even though they made have started the SUV fad, they are now doing their part to take a few steps backwards and improve Mother Earth.

Green Materials and Vehicle Recycling is one of their programs. They have begun to design new vehicles that are 85% recyclable, which can go a long way in helping our planet. They also have a an Educational program in place, they say "We think it’s important to pass on the lessons and knowledge we’ve learned from working on these issues to the communities where we live and work and to young students today who will be tomorrow’s leaders and problem solvers." This idea of educating children about the environment and sustainable energy is pretty great. As a future teacher myself, I know the importance of educating children about tomorrow's problems so that it is in the forefront of their minds and almost becomes habit for them. There are even activities and lesson plans on the website for teachers to utilize and build into their classroom.

This idea of education and sustainable energy and greener vehicles plays into GM's mission directly. GM lists seven different points in their mission statement: Reinvention, fuel economy and alternative fuels, safety, warranty and quality, technology, auto shows and special events, and education.

I think the educational program and the environmental responsibility are good points for the Public Relations of GM because it shows that GM not only cares about the people driving the cars and how they effect the environment, but also the new wave of future drivers and children who are able to apply their knowledge of global warming in order to support a company that is environmentally responsible such as GM.

I think other things that GM could be doing to help the environment would be to do something like for every x amount of cars sold, GM will plant x amount of trees in the communities surrounding their manufacturing plants.

There is so much information on the GM website about the environment and what they are doing to make the earth a little bit better. I think overall they are doing a really good job and I think that anyone who buys a GM would probably feel like they are doing their part in purchasing a "greener" car.