As if there wasn't enough going on at GM's Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit of late, GM announced today that it will be restating its 2001 earnings.
It should be noted that in 2001, GM had just come off of one of the best, if not the best, fiscal years ever. The stock price peaked in the low 90's, it was still enjoying record sales, and terrorism wasn't on anyone's radar yet (all in all, though, this period -- which to some may mark the beginning of the end -- may not have actually been as good as it first appeared).
Fast forward five years to present day and I find myself sifting through all of the reports of continued sales declines, SEC investigations, and credit ratings so low that I don't even recognize the rating agency. I am looking for something positive, or if that is too much to ask, then just something interesting, or at least different, about GM.
While browsing an online auto forum, I see a post making reference to a popular site having to do with GM -- Hummer, in fact. Sure, I think. This will do. I click on the link to FUH2.com.
I have seen sites before that were collections of accounts on product defects, and warnings to other consumers about a company's shortcomings. But this one takes it to a whole new level. I might add that none of the Hummers depicted in the site's several hundred pages of images seem to have had anything wrong with them -- other than that they've come to represent everything that is wrong with US automotive manufacturing and are, in fact, the pinnacle of conspicuous consumption.
FUH2.com, a site that includes nearly three thousand entries from all over the world, features pictures that readers have taken of themselves in the presence of a Hummer while giving it the single finger salute. Most of the images include a short caption with less than supportive words for the cars' respective owners.
Hardly your typical enthusiast's Web site.
I had nearly forgotten about the Hummer site until I started reading the newspaper this morning and saw yet another article mentioning the "storied" brand. This time it was prominently displayed in the pages of the New York Times.
The article wasn't so much about the vehicle itself as a Hummer fragrance for men, which is available at department stores and through a Hummer site. In an attempt, I guess, to capture some of the recognizable equity of the brand, the company is boasting that it's men's perfume "appeals to all types of enthusiasts who are capable of embracing a new appreciation for the finer rewards life has to offer. It is masculine, with rugged and adventurous attributes."
Unlike publicity, I am afraid that negative equity may, in fact, be worse the no equity at all.
The irony of coming across these two divergent medias is intriguing to me, and brings to mind the idea that a sudden change in outside (or "environmental") forces can drop the floor out of a company's strategy. Trying to sell a Hummer these days is akin to selling a Google employee a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica.
As a side note, Hummer's promotional site also states that this "olfactive sensation that can only be Hummer." Well, you guys smell all right, but it sure isn't of roses and lavender.
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