Christien Louviere

Yesterday, I went to hear Betsy Lazar speak at the AdClub of New Orleans luncheon with one of my co-workers.  Betsy is the General Director for Media Operations at GM.  She is quite intelligent and definitely knows her product.  Mrs. Lazar seems like the type of person who stays focused on what she needs to do and does not steer from the path.  She mentioned many things such as their preferred medium for new product rollouts to the new forms of media that will infiltrate our lives.  Nothing really surprised me except when she mentioned valet tickets.  I really need to get into a major market so I can experience some of these things. 

When she mentioned new product rollouts such as their most recent Vette,  I thought it would be television, but she classified it something along the lines of ‘interactive motion,’ which I understand.   In addition to television, new rollouts are going to included a good amount of motion on cell phones and blogs…nothing new there.  Also, she focused on new product tie ins.  For instance with the Oscars, they will unload a new ad campaign for the GM family.  Moreover, they will use Caddy as the main vehicle sponsor.  I thought the one great part of the speech is when she talked about the Oprah giveaway.  It was cool to hear about how much numbers, sales and calls increased about the new G6; furthermore, about how they had to do the show earlier than they had hoped.  Scary to think how much higher things would’ve been had they been able to do it at their ideal time.

I was a little disappointed in her presentation.  The PowerPoint was good, but she read off of her piece of paper.  It wasn’t interactive, which I thought was odd because she spent much time talking about how customer interaction is key.  When the questions came, she seemed to have predetermined answers.  Questions she could not answer…she seemed to not really answer the question.  It wasn’t meant to be a drilling session so no big deal.

She is knowledgeable about her industry and her product, but I wish she’d been more engaging with the audience.