Corporate Faces

The other day, I ran across an article in the Detroit News regarding the 2014 Malibu, GM freshens up 2014 Chevrolet Malibu in effort to push sales. One article I read quoted a GM employee as being concerned that people will not be able to distinguish between the Malibu and Impala, after stating a paragraph or two above, that the Malibu's face lift was inspired by the new Impala.  So, if you "inspire" a car's changes with another car in mind, how do they expect it to be viewed by the public?

This brought up an interesting topic. When does a corporate face work?  After I thought about it, it does work in certain branding.  BMW and Mercedes used a corporate face for decades, as did Jaguar.  More recently, Cadillac adopted the same mentality, and it seemingly works.  I would argue however, that the luxury car segment isn't like your other brands.  People look to Cadillac, BMW, Mercedes, etc looking for a certain style.  Then, they select the size car they want.  They don't car whether a smaller segment car shares the same face, they all represent the brand well.

With a brand like Chevrolet however, it simply doesn't work.  In fact, such corporate facing does the opposite in my opinion.  It waters down the brand, creating a fleet of mediocre cars that all look the same.  I personally feel that Ford's own Lincoln brand suffers the same fate, though not due to styling.  On the contrary, they suffer from years of rebadging Fords, and at times, sharing way too much styling to separate their "luxury" brand, from an entry level car.  In addition, Lincoln suffers from remaining front wheel drive, while all of it's competitors when the rear wheel drive route.  Some, never even dabbled with front wheel drive in their luxury cars.

My dad owns a 2013 Malibu, and loves it.  It's not so much the styling that was the issue in my opinion, as GM admits, it has done a horrible job pushing the car in regards to advertising and getting word out.  The styling, in my opinion, is actually very nice.  It's different enough that you don't confuse it with other Chevrolets.  With the new Chevy SS about to hit the market, you will have at a minimum 3 cars with VERY similar faces, which will hurt all models in my opinion.  It just completely baffles me how so many folks in the auto industry have their heads so far up their asses that they just don't get it, after all these years.  That was yet another reason I got the hell out of that industry.