January 14, 2020 • 12 mins
James Kotecki of C Space Studio speaks with Deborah Wahl, Global CMO, General Motors.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm James Kotechie. You're listening to the C Space
Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders from
cs H. I am James ko Techy and you're in
the C Space Studio here at c e S joining
us as the global CMO of General Motors, Deborah Wall,
(00:22):
thank you so much, thanks for having it. Great to
have you. So. General Motors is a well known brand,
but I always like to ask people, especially cmos, how
do you define your own brand? Yeah, it's it's such
an interesting time right now. That's such a great question
for UM and a car company, because we're in a
whole new phase of mobility. So we really look at
(00:44):
ourselves as classically a tech brand which a purpose of
driving more solutions per mile than anyone else UM. And
on top of that, we have a really clear mission
that our CEO is established. We're our ambition is to
create a world of zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion.
(01:05):
I love all of that. I want to unpack all that.
So what does it mean for what is solutions per mile?
Can you break that metric apart a little bit more? Yeah,
I think if if you look at it, there's so
much that's happening when you're part of mobility, and when
you're driving, you know you're you're not just on your
way from point A to point B. Lots of things
are happening, you're communicating, You've got a whole list of
things to do. So it's looking at how are we
(01:26):
understanding needs at every point and finding intuitive solutions. And
we've coined UM a way of thinking about this that's
called intuitive response because we're always looking at responses, but
we need to be ahead interesting. So technology that's presponding
to you and talking about solutions per mile where you're
doing a lot of different things. I mean big right
(01:48):
into that is the assumption that I'm not going to
be driving the car ultimately, right, because if I was
just driving the car, I should be focused on the road. Yeah.
I think there's two things that are happening clearly. UM.
One our first PA already is safety and a lot
of people have many things on their busy lives that
they're trying to do, uh, and we want to make
sure that everyone can drive safely. And so if you're
(02:10):
helping people, have an intuitive so you get into the car,
you set up your podcast or your entertainment. You think
about who you're gonna call and what calls you need
to make. You're thinking about what stops are you going
to Starbucks? Should you should be doing your pre order
before you go into drive? How do we enable all that?
That's one thing for today, and then clearly right on
the horizon is that next step. So we have an
(02:32):
amazing technology called super Creuse. I don't know if you've
tried it yet. It's in our CT six and our
Cadillacs and allows you to drive no hands, no feet,
and it's sort of the first step on the journey
to autonomous and it's so refreshing and exhilarating when you
experience it. Even though right now we're at that period
you still watch the road, you still have to be
(02:53):
aware you can't check your emails on that, although you
could use voice, and you know people have to thing
that way. But but it it's amazing how you feel
after that, which I think most people don't think about
when they're thinking about the journey to autonomous um talking
about all the technology that you're building into cars. From
an entertainment and engagement and calling people perspective, obviously people
(03:14):
have that built into their mobile phones. So how much
do you think about we want to build screens and
technologies into the car itself, and how much do you
think about we want to just be able for people
to plug their phone in and people's phones will always
be updated, maybe faster than you can even update them
in your cars. Yeah, it's um that certainly here at
CES that's the topic, and I think the biggest issue
is building this ecosystem that really works seamlessly for everyone
(03:37):
and how to do it, but yet how do you
also make it much more usable in the car. So
you're seeing UM at GM some of the models that
were coming out with We did some uh pre launch
for the new Escalade, which is coming out with a
screen that's absolutely stunning and beautiful, which changes the perspective
a lot different than what you do on your phone,
(03:57):
how you interact with things. So I think that's the
biggest thing. All of these pieces are going to work together.
We've announced significant partnership with Alexa, where you're starting to
be able to do a lot of different things with
partners in the ecosystem. And I imagine that five G
is another big piece of the puzzle for you that
will really determine, uh, the next level of connectivity for everything,
(04:19):
how we drive, how we do vehicle to vehicle interaction,
vehicle to infrastructure, but also really just on your daily
drive and your daily mobility. What are those simple things
that are gonna make your life a lot better? How
do you deliver them in that intuitive presponds, So, zero crashes,
zero emissions, and what was the third? Zero congestion, zero congestion.
(04:40):
How far are we away from achieving that dream? I
think we're on the path for all of them. So
significant efforts happening. Zero crashes. If you just look at
the level of safety technology today in vehicles and where
it is all of the things that we're also using
with autonomous help to get you closer to zero crashes.
And I us tell us during my seventeen year old
(05:02):
I just he just started driving, right. I was always
warning him like, oh my god, be careful. Your aunt
and I we crashed our cars their first year driving.
It happens. He's in his you know, second year of driving,
is like, semam, nothing's happened. I was like, yeah, because
you have all the amazing safeties thing they're on the
car um so you know, we're we're seeing quick progression.
(05:22):
I think on all of that that's going to help
UM zero emissions. GM will be announcing twenty electric vehicles
by so that's going to have a huge impact, and
we feel that that is really our responsibility. When you
look at the unintended consequences of mobility over the last
fifty years, I think this decade signifies when we're really
(05:45):
going to start solving those and take it to the
next level. UM some people would say that congestion if
you have a lot of self driving autonomous cars on
the road, will actually be worse because if I can
just send my car out to get my groceries for me,
or send my car OWD to pick up my kid,
don't have to do it. I might send my car
out more than I would just drive it if I
had to drive it myself. How do you address that challenge? Yeah,
(06:06):
that is a great point, But I think that is
when we start having the vehicle to vehicle connection, vehicle
to infrastructure. There's a lot of ways that we haven't
even thought about. UM. Dan Ammond, who was the president
of General Motors is now is running Cruise Automotive is
just wrote a fascinating statement and blog about you know,
the perspective of what we need to solve and how
(06:28):
we need to collectively think differently about how we do transportation,
how we do all this and if you live in
l A or I lived in Chicago, you know that
we need to do that. We're talking with Wald, CMO
of General Motors. You are, of course the CMO. So
let's talk marketing for a second in how technology is
changing your job there. You know, when I think about
car companies and advertising, I think about big, splashy TV
(06:50):
as Super Bowl commercials are huge advice. But how is
technology changing the way you think about marketing beyond that? Yeah, um,
it's changing everything. So I think the first and sort
of basic platform is the idea that we can suddenly
target do one to one and personalization is coming into
reality because the data technology is and enabling that. So
(07:12):
one thing that we've done at General Motors is we're
moving to a complete audience space propensity modeling structure for
all of the brands where you can identify really who
has the highest propensity as you move them through the
classic funnel. It's incredible. We tested it after only three
months of testing on one brand at Cadillac. We saw
a ten percent increase in effectiveness. And it's just the beginning.
(07:34):
So that's rolling out so quickly and is a better experience,
it's more effective, it's it's really strong and will make
a big difference. And have there been counterintuitive things you found, like, oh,
this data I would never have expected means that someone
has a greater propensity by the car actually does. Yes. Um,
the most surprising thing was that someone who likes magic
(07:55):
shows is has higher propensity to buy a Cadillac than
other or like we have not the investment cadillacis Magic campaign.
We'll know where that came from. Yeah, but I think
it's all those simple insights that really do develop, and
it's shocking when you become completely committed to it, how
it really changes all of the media strategy and the
(08:16):
investment strategy everything. So we're excited about that. And so
let's bring it back to the idea of self driving
cars and and and all the things that you're talking
about the promise of the future. What role does marketing
play and getting people ready for that and used to that,
And it's from a safety context, you know, prepared to
actually take a seat in a self driving car. Yeah,
I think right now, as always with humans, when there's
(08:37):
all this change, people are very very worried about it.
So it is looking at how we bring people along
on that journey. So I'll go back to super crews.
Great example. The idea that you can drive no hands,
no feet is very intimidating for many people. UM, but
it's such an intuitive experience as they do it and
try it. So one it's making sure the experience is
(08:58):
simple and easy in the vehicle, UH, making sure we
give people time to come along the journey. So we
didn't just say jump in the car. You can play
on your phone and not do anything. We said jump
in the car, have this experience. Understand that you will
still have awareness so you get comfortable. But we're seeing
the take rate. This is what's fascinating. A couple of
months ago, UM super cruise vehicles had logged about two
(09:21):
million miles. A few months later, it's up to five
million miles, which shows that that is something that's easy,
that people love that they're adopting. So I see that
happening for e VS, for autonomous UM. I think that
path of common Our role is to make sure people
have access to it can see it, can experience it.
(09:41):
You used to be the CMO of McDonald's, right, it
seems like a totally different company. But I wonder are
there things that are similar about the role or things
that you learned in that role that you apply from
selling Hamburgers to now selling cars. Yeah. I think, um,
the biggest thing, which and I hope this is the
last year we'll talk about it, but is looking at
legacy brands which have a long storied his tree, how
are we changing and how fast we change our internal
(10:03):
culture are external approach so that we're adopting and actually
becoming as disruptive as anyone else. And one of my
predictions for that will probably get to that point where
we end that discussion between legacy and disruptors. I see,
so any so brands are just brands, and you can
have disruption within legacy brands. So you can have would
be disruptors who act too much like legacy brands, and
(10:25):
there's all just kind of blending. Right. It was like
kind of like when you just talk about new media
and old and traditional media that's done now. We talked
about that, Yes, every company is a tech company, right,
and so like in that case, what does it even
mean to be a tech company? Exactly? So then it
goes back to as marketers, it is what's the human
centric approach to technology? And how do you still deliver
a differentiated experience? Everyone? Everything should have that lens of
(10:49):
what the brand is overall, because people still react to
that and they give that value. The human centered focus
is always a big theme for us, and it certainly
is here this year. As technology advances, it all comes
down to people. At the end of the day, doesn't
it amazing? It's back to us again? It does it does? Um?
Last question, do you see the role of CMO changing?
Do you think that your successor will have that title?
(11:12):
The meaning of CEO? Is that going to be different
in the future. Yeah, that's always a big debate, and
I think the role has certainly changed sort of. The
c doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of chief,
but it does mean a lot in terms of contributing.
So I think our mission is to drive growth, is
to encourage disruption and faster pace and a lot of change,
(11:33):
and um, we've got to create value overall. So I
see that role really actually gaining more value whatever we
call it, But it's still is that idea that we
are advocates for the customer and that's our role in
the company overall. Well, thanks so much for being here
and sharing with us, Global CMO of General Motors, thank
you so much, thank you. This podcast is in partnership
(11:57):
with the I Heart Podcast Networks. Yes,
Hi, I'm James Kotechie. You're listening to the C Space
Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders from
cs H. I am James ko Techy and you're in
the C Space Studio here at c e S joining
us as the global CMO of General Motors, Deborah Wall,
(00:22):
thank you so much, thanks for having it. Great to
have you. So. General Motors is a well known brand,
but I always like to ask people, especially cmos, how
do you define your own brand? Yeah, it's it's such
an interesting time right now. That's such a great question
for UM and a car company, because we're in a
whole new phase of mobility. So we really look at
(00:44):
ourselves as classically a tech brand which a purpose of
driving more solutions per mile than anyone else UM. And
on top of that, we have a really clear mission
that our CEO is established. We're our ambition is to
create a world of zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion.
(01:05):
I love all of that. I want to unpack all that.
So what does it mean for what is solutions per mile?
Can you break that metric apart a little bit more? Yeah,
I think if if you look at it, there's so
much that's happening when you're part of mobility, and when
you're driving, you know you're you're not just on your
way from point A to point B. Lots of things
are happening, you're communicating, You've got a whole list of
things to do. So it's looking at how are we
(01:26):
understanding needs at every point and finding intuitive solutions. And
we've coined UM a way of thinking about this that's
called intuitive response because we're always looking at responses, but
we need to be ahead interesting. So technology that's presponding
to you and talking about solutions per mile where you're
doing a lot of different things. I mean big right
(01:48):
into that is the assumption that I'm not going to
be driving the car ultimately, right, because if I was
just driving the car, I should be focused on the road. Yeah.
I think there's two things that are happening clearly. UM.
One our first PA already is safety and a lot
of people have many things on their busy lives that
they're trying to do, uh, and we want to make
sure that everyone can drive safely. And so if you're
(02:10):
helping people, have an intuitive so you get into the car,
you set up your podcast or your entertainment. You think
about who you're gonna call and what calls you need
to make. You're thinking about what stops are you going
to Starbucks? Should you should be doing your pre order
before you go into drive? How do we enable all that?
That's one thing for today, and then clearly right on
the horizon is that next step. So we have an
(02:32):
amazing technology called super Creuse. I don't know if you've
tried it yet. It's in our CT six and our
Cadillacs and allows you to drive no hands, no feet,
and it's sort of the first step on the journey
to autonomous and it's so refreshing and exhilarating when you
experience it. Even though right now we're at that period
you still watch the road, you still have to be
(02:53):
aware you can't check your emails on that, although you
could use voice, and you know people have to thing
that way. But but it it's amazing how you feel
after that, which I think most people don't think about
when they're thinking about the journey to autonomous um talking
about all the technology that you're building into cars. From
an entertainment and engagement and calling people perspective, obviously people
(03:14):
have that built into their mobile phones. So how much
do you think about we want to build screens and
technologies into the car itself, and how much do you
think about we want to just be able for people
to plug their phone in and people's phones will always
be updated, maybe faster than you can even update them
in your cars. Yeah, it's um that certainly here at
CES that's the topic, and I think the biggest issue
is building this ecosystem that really works seamlessly for everyone
(03:37):
and how to do it, but yet how do you
also make it much more usable in the car. So
you're seeing UM at GM some of the models that
were coming out with We did some uh pre launch
for the new Escalade, which is coming out with a
screen that's absolutely stunning and beautiful, which changes the perspective
a lot different than what you do on your phone,
(03:57):
how you interact with things. So I think that's the
biggest thing. All of these pieces are going to work together.
We've announced significant partnership with Alexa, where you're starting to
be able to do a lot of different things with
partners in the ecosystem. And I imagine that five G
is another big piece of the puzzle for you that
will really determine, uh, the next level of connectivity for everything,
(04:19):
how we drive, how we do vehicle to vehicle interaction,
vehicle to infrastructure, but also really just on your daily
drive and your daily mobility. What are those simple things
that are gonna make your life a lot better? How
do you deliver them in that intuitive presponds, So, zero crashes,
zero emissions, and what was the third? Zero congestion, zero congestion.
(04:40):
How far are we away from achieving that dream? I
think we're on the path for all of them. So
significant efforts happening. Zero crashes. If you just look at
the level of safety technology today in vehicles and where
it is all of the things that we're also using
with autonomous help to get you closer to zero crashes.
And I us tell us during my seventeen year old
(05:02):
I just he just started driving, right. I was always
warning him like, oh my god, be careful. Your aunt
and I we crashed our cars their first year driving.
It happens. He's in his you know, second year of driving,
is like, semam, nothing's happened. I was like, yeah, because
you have all the amazing safeties thing they're on the
car um so you know, we're we're seeing quick progression.
(05:22):
I think on all of that that's going to help
UM zero emissions. GM will be announcing twenty electric vehicles
by so that's going to have a huge impact, and
we feel that that is really our responsibility. When you
look at the unintended consequences of mobility over the last
fifty years, I think this decade signifies when we're really
(05:45):
going to start solving those and take it to the
next level. UM some people would say that congestion if
you have a lot of self driving autonomous cars on
the road, will actually be worse because if I can
just send my car out to get my groceries for me,
or send my car OWD to pick up my kid,
don't have to do it. I might send my car
out more than I would just drive it if I
had to drive it myself. How do you address that challenge? Yeah,
(06:06):
that is a great point, But I think that is
when we start having the vehicle to vehicle connection, vehicle
to infrastructure. There's a lot of ways that we haven't
even thought about. UM. Dan Ammond, who was the president
of General Motors is now is running Cruise Automotive is
just wrote a fascinating statement and blog about you know,
the perspective of what we need to solve and how
(06:28):
we need to collectively think differently about how we do transportation,
how we do all this and if you live in
l A or I lived in Chicago, you know that
we need to do that. We're talking with Wald, CMO
of General Motors. You are, of course the CMO. So
let's talk marketing for a second in how technology is
changing your job there. You know, when I think about
car companies and advertising, I think about big, splashy TV
(06:50):
as Super Bowl commercials are huge advice. But how is
technology changing the way you think about marketing beyond that? Yeah, um,
it's changing everything. So I think the first and sort
of basic platform is the idea that we can suddenly
target do one to one and personalization is coming into
reality because the data technology is and enabling that. So
(07:12):
one thing that we've done at General Motors is we're
moving to a complete audience space propensity modeling structure for
all of the brands where you can identify really who
has the highest propensity as you move them through the
classic funnel. It's incredible. We tested it after only three
months of testing on one brand at Cadillac. We saw
a ten percent increase in effectiveness. And it's just the beginning.
(07:34):
So that's rolling out so quickly and is a better experience,
it's more effective, it's it's really strong and will make
a big difference. And have there been counterintuitive things you found, like, oh,
this data I would never have expected means that someone
has a greater propensity by the car actually does. Yes. Um,
the most surprising thing was that someone who likes magic
(07:55):
shows is has higher propensity to buy a Cadillac than
other or like we have not the investment cadillacis Magic campaign.
We'll know where that came from. Yeah, but I think
it's all those simple insights that really do develop, and
it's shocking when you become completely committed to it, how
it really changes all of the media strategy and the
(08:16):
investment strategy everything. So we're excited about that. And so
let's bring it back to the idea of self driving
cars and and and all the things that you're talking
about the promise of the future. What role does marketing
play and getting people ready for that and used to that,
And it's from a safety context, you know, prepared to
actually take a seat in a self driving car. Yeah,
I think right now, as always with humans, when there's
(08:37):
all this change, people are very very worried about it.
So it is looking at how we bring people along
on that journey. So I'll go back to super crews.
Great example. The idea that you can drive no hands,
no feet is very intimidating for many people. UM, but
it's such an intuitive experience as they do it and
try it. So one it's making sure the experience is
(08:58):
simple and easy in the vehicle, UH, making sure we
give people time to come along the journey. So we
didn't just say jump in the car. You can play
on your phone and not do anything. We said jump
in the car, have this experience. Understand that you will
still have awareness so you get comfortable. But we're seeing
the take rate. This is what's fascinating. A couple of
months ago, UM super cruise vehicles had logged about two
(09:21):
million miles. A few months later, it's up to five
million miles, which shows that that is something that's easy,
that people love that they're adopting. So I see that
happening for e VS, for autonomous UM. I think that
path of common Our role is to make sure people
have access to it can see it, can experience it.
(09:41):
You used to be the CMO of McDonald's, right, it
seems like a totally different company. But I wonder are
there things that are similar about the role or things
that you learned in that role that you apply from
selling Hamburgers to now selling cars. Yeah. I think, um,
the biggest thing, which and I hope this is the
last year we'll talk about it, but is looking at
legacy brands which have a long storied his tree, how
are we changing and how fast we change our internal
(10:03):
culture are external approach so that we're adopting and actually
becoming as disruptive as anyone else. And one of my
predictions for that will probably get to that point where
we end that discussion between legacy and disruptors. I see,
so any so brands are just brands, and you can
have disruption within legacy brands. So you can have would
be disruptors who act too much like legacy brands, and
(10:25):
there's all just kind of blending. Right. It was like
kind of like when you just talk about new media
and old and traditional media that's done now. We talked
about that, Yes, every company is a tech company, right,
and so like in that case, what does it even
mean to be a tech company? Exactly? So then it
goes back to as marketers, it is what's the human
centric approach to technology? And how do you still deliver
a differentiated experience? Everyone? Everything should have that lens of
(10:49):
what the brand is overall, because people still react to
that and they give that value. The human centered focus
is always a big theme for us, and it certainly
is here this year. As technology advances, it all comes
down to people. At the end of the day, doesn't
it amazing? It's back to us again? It does it does? Um?
Last question, do you see the role of CMO changing?
Do you think that your successor will have that title?
(11:12):
The meaning of CEO? Is that going to be different
in the future. Yeah, that's always a big debate, and
I think the role has certainly changed sort of. The
c doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of chief,
but it does mean a lot in terms of contributing.
So I think our mission is to drive growth, is
to encourage disruption and faster pace and a lot of change,
(11:33):
and um, we've got to create value overall. So I
see that role really actually gaining more value whatever we
call it, But it's still is that idea that we
are advocates for the customer and that's our role in
the company overall. Well, thanks so much for being here
and sharing with us, Global CMO of General Motors, thank
you so much, thank you. This podcast is in partnership
(11:57):
with the I Heart Podcast Networks. Yes,
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