Glory Days: When Horsepower and Passion Ruled Detroit — A Memoir by Jim Wangers

List Price: $29.95 Our Price: $18.57 You Save: $11.38 (38%)

Item # BEN-02084  ISBN: 0837602084




Availability: Usually ships the next business day.

Back by popular demand! With renewed interest in GTO due to Pontiac's scheduled 2004 launch of the new GTO, veteran automotive marketer Jim Wanger's book Glory Days is available once again.

The automobile industry is one of the most capital- and marketing-intensive industries in the world today. Common wisdom states that the keys to sales success in the industry are no different than in any other: brand management, product positioning, and brand imaging. But what do these commonly traded buzzwords really mean, and how do they translate into a successful brand campaign?

In Glory Days, Jim Wangers uses his 45-year career in Detroit as the basis for explaining successful brand marketing for automobiles:

• Why brand management for cars is not the same as for other "branded" products.
• How to position a model for the best possible tie-in promotion-and how not to.
• What it takes to establish and evolve a brand image.

"Any car maker's greatest asset is their perceived image in the marketplace." Wangers knows what he is talking about, for he was part of the most successful brand marketing campaign to ever come out of Detroit. At a time when such automotive legends as "Bunkie" Knudsen, Pete Estes, and John DeLorean held sway in the Motor City, Jim Wangers created and defined the American musclecar image, devising savvy brand marketing strategies to promote the car that started it all and became a cultural icon: the Pontiac GTO.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
   
   
2. Getting the Fever
   Finding a true calling: working with cars and marketing them.
   
   
3. Learning the Ropes
   At Kaiser, learning what a good tie-in promotion requires - but not enough power to buck the system.
   
   
4. Early Successes...and Failures
   First ignored, then tolerated, product knowledge leads to Chevrolet success; arrogance to a job loss.
   
   
5. Temporary Insider
   A chance to work at Chrysler gives experience as the client, but happiness is fleeting.
   
   
6. A Player on the "Hot" Team
   A move to Pontiac, where big changes are redefining the car, marketing ideas win power.
   
   
7. The Royal Treatment
   How Royal Pontiac made "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" work, all the way to an NHRA drag racing win.
   
   
8. Forging the Bonds
   The final players take their place for the start of the musclecar era, as the GTO is born.
   
   
9. The Tiger Learns to Roar
   Firing on all cylinders: GTO marketing ranges from magazines to shoes to breakfast cereal to Tigers to Monkees.
   
   
10. Shifting Gears
    Major changes in corporate policies force a rethinking of marketing strategies.
    
    
11. Judge...and judgement
    As the GTO reaches its apogee, the author falls victim to corporate politics.
    
    
12. Dealing Myself Out
    Adventures at Hurst; how running a dealership is not the same as marketing cars.
    
    
13. Nothing but Sizzle
    Take one car, add stripes, a spoiler, a wheel package and paint, and presto! a new model.
    
    
14. The Consultant
    Building a business out of performance comparisons.
    
    
15. Why the Tiger Roared
    Marketing and brand management in today’s environment, and how the Wide-Track concept would fare today.
    
    
16. Afterword: Preserving the Legend
    The importance of the car hobby today.

Winner of the prestigious 1998 MOTO Gold Award for Autobiographical Writing presented by the International Automotive Media Conference!

Glory Days: When Horsepower and Passion Ruled Detroit — A Memoir by Jim Wangers