GM, Coca-Cola and Siemens: This Week's Top Five Stories

General Motors Appoints CMO for Buick and GMC Brands

General Motors is appointing former Nissan CMO Allyson Witherspoon as its new Chief Marketing Officer for Buick and GMC.

In her role, she will lead marketing for the two brands under General Motors Chief Communications and Marketing Officer Lin-Hua Wu, who took on the role last November. 

“It's an incredible honour to partner with a strategic and talented leadership team and dealer network to steer both brands into the next era,” Allyson says. “I look forward to helping write the next chapter for two iconic American brands in Buick and GMC. Elevating the experiences, technologies and vehicles that inspire confidence, enable adventure and deliver premium capability in everything we do.”

Coca-Cola Sharpens its Brand with New Global Identity

Launched on Monday 20 July across Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Coca-Cola's new identity gives the 140-year-old brand a bold refresh.

The brand released numerous images alongside its announcement to reveal what consumers can expect in the brand's new image.

The changes will appear across packaging, retail environments, equipment and digital platforms and places stronger emphasis on Coca-Cola’s most distinctive visual assets – including the Dynamic Ribbon design and its red and white colour palette. 

Its refreshed design confirms a new era of brand consistency and guaranteed standout across more than 200 markets.

Culturally Relevant Brands More Valuable, Says CultureLab

Is cultural relevance the key to commercial growth?

New research from CultureLab, in partnership with The Mediator author Doug Shapiro, finds that brands that are culturally relevant are worth nearly three times more than brands that aren’t. 

The research looked at public market valuation and cultural performance data across 75 brands in eight different categories – such as apparel and footwear, quick service restaurants (QSRs) and restaurants – and found a consistent positive trend between cultural relevance and valuation. 

CultureLab measured cultural relevance through the breadth and depth of mentions, a brand’s presence on the most culturally influential platforms, its share of voice and the wider cultural sentiment around a brand. 

Siemens Energy and Siemens Gamesa to Rebrand to Omterra

Siemens Energy has confirmed it will phase out its existing brand names in favour of a new identity called Omterra. The rebrand will apply to both Siemens Energy and its wind business Siemens Gamesa as the group moves to establish a standalone market position six years after separating from Siemens AG.

The name change will begin later this year and marks the end of a licensing agreement that allowed the company to use the Siemens name following its spin-off in 2020. According to Siemens Energy President and CEO Christian Bruch, the new name combines "om" meaning all and "terra" meaning land to reflect the company's "global footprint, its technological expertise and its commitment to contributing to reliable energy supplies worldwide".

The timing of the announcement follows a period of operational stabilisation after quality issues at Siemens Gamesa. The business has reported improved profitability as demand for grid infrastructure and power equipment has increased across markets investing in electrification and transmission capacity.

Christian says the licensing arrangement was always temporary. He notes that the company has now "earned the trust of our customers and the capital markets, improved our profitability and have ambitious growth plans for the years ahead".

AstraZeneca Appoints New Global Marketing Director

Sobi Velauthapillai has been appointed as Global Marketing Director by AstraZeneca after being with the global biopharmaceutical company for almost two decades, and will relocate from Switzerland to the United Kingdom to take on the role.

Continuing to follow AstraZeneca’s five core values (Follow the Science, Play to Win, Put Patients First, Do the Right Thing and Be Entrepreneurial), Sobi will be responsible for shaping worldwide marketing strategy, driving commercial excellence, supporting product lifecycle management, accelerating global brand growth and advancing AstraZeneca’s mission of delivering innovative medicines to patients worldwide.