Vauxhall boss to head GM Europe marketing

General Motors (GM) is planning a wide-ranging review of its European sales and marketing strategies. The company, which has suffered poor sales, has appointed Vauxhall’s managing director Nick Reilly to oversee the review.

Reilly has been promoted to European vice-president of sales, marketing and aftersales at GM.

According to insiders, the sales and marketing review will examine the GM group’s European pricing, product and marketing strategies.

Although he is being replaced as Vauxhall managing director by Australian Kevin Wale, head of operations for GM in the Asia-Pacific region, Reilly will remain as Vauxhall’s chairman.

Reilly has been managing director of Vauxhall for five years, and famously sacrificed his &£160,000 salary for a year in an attempt to save the company’s doomed Luton plant. Last December he announced that the plant was to be closed.

In the first five months of 2001, sales of GM’s European brands – Opel, Vauxhall and Saab – dropped by 3.4 per cent to 743,360, according to the European Car Manufacturers Association. GM’s market share, however, remained unchanged at 11.1 per cent.

Vauxhall is launching a TV brand campaign on July 6. The ads will no longer feature Griff Rhys Jones (MW April 12).

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