GM: Chevrolet, not Chevy!

After “Chevy” was used for decades for the Chevrolet brand, General Motors Corp. would no longer use this shortcut. Consistency reasons are behind Chevrolet, which GM executives believes that disrupt the use of such abbreviations. A few days ago, the New York Times obtained a memo sent by GM’s managers to the employees, asking them to use only the “Chevrolet” name when they refer to this brand of General Motors.

Deliberately or not, the note contained a shorthand used quite often to represent another well known US brand. So those from GM refered to Coca-Cola through Coke, making the same kind of shorthand that is wished to be avoided in the future. GM directors intend to go the exact opposite trend started by other famous brands. As suggested by the Times newspaper, the trend in this area is to be accessible with all the brands and friendly slogans. However you read this decision, some sources within GM suggested that it is heavely supported by the new advertising campaign made by Goodby Silverstein & Partners, which took the American brand in their hands of the company which handled the advertising Chevrolet and GM in the last 60 years.

A note of that statement suggests that each employee that uses “Chevy” instead of “Chevrolet” should put 25 cents in a box. The purpose of this exercise is to help employees become familiar with the correct American brand name. All funds raised could be used for team building activities. Until then, GM should have discussions with Google and should update their websites because their Twitter page has the motto “Talking Chevy one Tweet at a Time”. Moreover, they have sponsored links on Google which led to the official website of the American brand, under the slogan “The Official Chevy Site” . Even chevy.com directs the users towards the official website which uses the full name of the American brand.

Chevrolet dealers disagree with the new decision. First, they say that short Chevy brand is much closer to the brand than the Chevrolet name. GM directors disagree with this opinion pointing out that Chevrolet is an active trademark in 130 countries. Moreover, an expert in marketing from the United States of America underlines that GM executives have said nothing of the “GM” acronym which is present for years. Use of this acronym is very similar to the “Chevy” shorthand used today. Unwittingly, the new advertising agency, created an unnecessary stir around issues that they consider crucial to the future of Chevrolet, while public, dealers and employees do not think of it as a problem.