General Motors like a Rock

CASE – General Motors: Like a Rock

1992 Chevrolet Truck Commercial "Like A Rock"

1. The underlying nonmarket issue facing GM was product safety. What was the

source of this issue? At the time of this case, where was the issue in its NM life

cycle?

The source of issue is the technological advancement and the issue in its NM life cycle is legislation.

2. Which interests are active on this issue? Why are they motivated to advance the

issue through its lifecycle?

Media- NBC and Popular Hot Rodding magazine.

NGO- CAS

GM had managed to avoid the eye of media for years by fighting on a case-by-case basis. The product safety is always a attractive topic for media to get the attention from people. Also, the intrinsic audience interest and perceived societal significance are very high. Those reasons motivate them to advance the issue.

3. Which institutions will address the issue?

NHTSA(National Highway Transportation Safety Administration)

Media(Other socail media company and tv programs)

Pbulic Sentiment

4. Identify the information associated with the issue of product safety. What were

GM’s arguments and what were the opposing arguments?

According to NHTSA, GM's side saddle trucks were 2.4 times as likely as Ford's to be involved in deadly side-inpact crashes.

According to the Insurance of Highway Safety, the GM trucks might be slightly more prone to fire thab similar models built by Ford and Chrysler, but they could be far safer in certain kinds of accients.

According to GM, they suggested a need for a broader and more appropriate criterion of safety-that of overall crashworthiness because there was as least one large database on accidents indicated that in terms of the overall probability of a fatal accident, GM trucks were marginally safer than their competitors.

5. On February 4, 1993 an Atlantic jury awarded over $1M in damages to the parents

of a 17-year-old boy killed in a GM C/K pickup truck that caught fire after a collision.

What type of media coverage and treatment should GM anticipate over the next

week and why? (refer to the theory of news media coverage and treatment to

answer this)

The type of media coberage and treatment should GM anticipate over the next week depends on two elements which are intrinsic audience interest and perceived societal significance. In this case, it is about the human right that a child is killed by the fire after a collision. Also, it is include the public safety because the same type of this truck may have same problem. We can conclude from the above information that both of instrinsic audience interest and perceived societal significance are very high, so GM should anticipate ectensive coverage position takinga and advocacy.

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