"Hey, you know what young people like? Trucker hats! iPads! Techno! Skirts!" — GM's millennial-chasing PR department, possibly high, when thinking of how to unveil the Chevrolet Sonic at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show.
GM's got a full slate of unveils for this year's show, including the Z06, the GMC Canyon and maybe a Cadillac ATS coupe. It's a good year to be GM. 2011, not so much. Still in the shadow of bankruptcy, the company needed a hit — particularly one to bring in younger buyers. Enter the Sonic.
But you can't just reveal a car the old-fashioned way for youngsters. Oh, no. Kids these days aren't sold on just taking a giant bed sheet off a vehicle. No, you have to have dancers! Dancers wearing hipster plaid and playing with iPhones!
So who do we have here presenting the Sonic — we've got the woman I think was the dancing girl in the old Mitsubishi ads, some ass who probably talks on the phone at the movies, a guy using an iPad to make a sound not unlike an alarm at a slaughterhouse, and not a single person dancing on beat.
And then Mark Reuss talks about marketing and volume. Thankfully, GM seems to have: learned their lesson.