One wonders what would have happened if GM didn't spend $32 billion propping up a weak company. Still, doesn't seem like purchasing all those television commercials really benefited GM - perhaps they should have allocated that money on the electric car, or perhaps at the Smithsonian.
CONTEMPLATING THE SORRY STATE OF GENERAL MOTORS Given that General Motors has spent $32 billion on advertising in the past 10 years but has nevertheless wound up reporting record losses, you have to wonder if the company should continue its advertising. ... Would you believe that GM in the past decade spent $32.9 billion on advertising in the American market? Considering that the automaker had a recent market capitalization of $10.9 billion, the past decade of GM advertising cost more than three times the value of the entire company.Despite that, GM's domestic market share continues to decline, from a 1962 high of 51.9% of the market to last year's 26.2%. (Its market share has declined 30 of the last 43 years.)
Last year, GM lost $8.6 billion. And just last month, its credit ratings took another hit as Moody's Investors Service slashed the company's rating one notch further into junk territory and warned the company could resort to bankruptcy. “The evidence points, with increasing certitude,” Carol Loomis wrote in a Fortune magazine cover story about GM last month, “to bankruptcy.”
