American Car Industry Nowadays

" Glitzy - and Grim", article by Joseph B. White, The Wall Street Journal

This article reveals a lot of marketing issues in auto manufacturing industry nowadays. It

is not a secret that U.S. auto makers are going through some tough times right now -

some of them like GM feel it more than others. However, the situation remains critical:

it's not a secret that Japanese auto market has been by far more successful for quite some

time now and sales of American cars continue to decline.

Perhaps a lot of answers to these problems come from choosing the right strategy for the

positioning and marketing the product as well as responding to the market needs in a

timely matter and in the right way. Most all of the U.S. auto makers offer upgraded

models of some very successful in the past SUVs and trucks. However, the article

stresses, this year is definitely is not the " year of the truck" or " year of SUV". People

want better gas mileage (as the gas prices surged last couple of years, it became an

extremely important factor for consumers), better prices and design.

The article shows that it is possible to successfully turnaround company with the help of

the right marketing strategy. Nissan and Chrysler are often -cited examples of that.