GM ads steer clear of ABC's Emmys
Automaker had yet to formally book any spots
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With GM seeing sales plunge, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the automaker is also hammering its ad agencies to slash the fees charged for various services by as much as 20%.
ABC declined comment on GM's move, though it's understood that the automaker had yet to formally book any spots in the three-hour Sept. 21 telecast. In last year's Emmycast on Fox, GM had seven 30-second spots, most touting Cadillac.
According to ad monitoring firm TNS Media Intelligence, GM ranked No. 2 to Procter & Gamble Co. in ad spending in all media. The auto giant increased its overall ad spending in the first three months of this year by 12.6% compared with the same period in 2007, with expenditures of $532.1 million, most of which was devoted to TV spots touting the redesigns of the Chevrolet Malibu and Cadillac CTS.
Even before it announced $10 billion in spending cuts last month, the automaker's overall ad budget had been steadily declining over the past several years as the company steers away from traditional platforms and toward new media.
According to TNS, its $2.1 billion media budget last year represented a 9% trim from 2006. And the $2.3 billion GM spent in 2006 was off about 24% from its 2005 budget.
GM's ad spending on newspapers last year was down 32% from 2006, while spending on TV ads dropped 11%, according to TNS.
"Some of these high-profile event programs are pretty expensive," said an exec for a media agency that doesn't rep GM, speculating on why the automaker chose specifically to sit out of the Emmy telecast. "You buy time on these programs because you want to make a statement. But given the economic situation right now, they might have not felt like an awards show was the appropriate environment for them to be in."
Automakers as a whole rep about 12% of all ad spending, and GM is hardly alone in its struggles right now. A report recently put out by Sanford Bernstein & Co. predicts that auto makers will cut their U.S. ad spending by $3 billion this year. That would leave their overall media imprint at around $15 billion, which is what they spent a decade ago.
