Details are emerging over the sudden resignation of Joel Ewanick, General Motors’ chief marketing officer and, according to press reports, it is all down to a deal with top English soccer club Manchester United.
According to The Times newspaper, Ewanick stepped down on Sunday after apparently failing to get a deal to make Chevrolet the official car of the famous football club properly authorised by his financial overseers in Detroit.
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GM was saying nothing, only that Ewanick had “failed to meet the expectations that the company has for its employees”.
There has been speculation in the industry that GM’s marketing boss did not get along with some colleagues and that the company was looking for an excuse to dismiss him.
Ewanick was responsible for the company’s US$4.5bn global advertising budget, making him one of the most powerful men in the world of advertising. His departure could trigger a change in GM’s marketing strategy and maybe a reprieve for Facebook, after the social network lost GM’s advertising shortly before its listing in May.
GM may also rethink its plans to boycott the Super Bowl final in the US.
The deal that is understood to have led to Ewanick’s resignation is a five-year partnership agreement between GM’s Chevy brand and Manchester United, Chevrolet’s first move into football sponsorship and understood to be worth tens of millions of dollars.
Its interest in Manchester United is aimed at boosting the brand here in Britainwhere it has less than a 1% market share although a bonus for Chevy is United’s huge following in Asia.
Ewanick joined GM as head of American marketing in 2010 and became head of global advertising seven months later. He is said to have angered a number of Madison Avenue advertising executives during his tenure by demanding that agencies merge so that GM could consolidate brand spending as part of a plan to save US$2bn over the next five years. His brashness is also said to have annoyed some colleagues.
It is also speculated that Ewanick may have fallen out with GM chief executive Dan Akerson who is reported to have made a spur-of-the-moment decision to fire Karl-Friedrich Stracke, head of operations in Europe, two weeks ago.
Ewanick will replaced by Alan Batey, a Brit who previously was head of Chevy sales in North America.
Ewanick is no stranger to controversy and an advert for GM trucks shown during the Super Bowl this year annoyed Ford so much that the carmaker threatened to sue.
Ewanick added a final line to the ad saying that a driver hadn’t made it through a tough landscape because he was driving a Ford. Despite protests from the rival company, he refused to apologise.
“We can wait until the world ends, and if we need to, we will apologise then,” he said.
Ewanick rose to prominence helping Hyundai build its presence in North America before moving to Nissan where he spent only six weeks before taking up the marketing post with GM.
