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Could Manchester United deal be the reason for General Motors marketing boss’s departure?

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By Cameron Clarke, Editor

July 31, 2012 | 3 min read

Joel Ewanick was the General Motors marketing chief who famously pulled the car giant out of Facebook advertising. Now he has been ousted from the company after reportedly clashing with top brass over his progress in overhauling its marketing function, and perhaps most intriguingly, for his handling of a sponsorship deal with a British football club.

Joel Ewanick

Ewanick was hired by GM two years ago, tasked with presiding over one of the biggest advertising budgets in the US and rejuvenating the Chevrolet manufacturer’s marketing activity. To outsiders, his most notable decision during that time came in May of this year, when he controversially cut GM's ties with Facebook after questioning the value of the $10m the company was spending to advertise on the social network.

There followed much industry debate about GM’s judgement and widespread scrutiny into Facebook’s viability as an ad platform in the lead up to its vaunted IPO. Shunning Facebook was one of the biggest calls of Ewanick’s tenure and possibly his career. So it is surprising then to hear reports emanating from the US that it was in fact Ewanick’s management of what on the face of it appear to be straightforward sponsorship deals with rival English football teams Manchester United and Liverpool that precipitated his departure this week. (GM announced its four-year sponsorship of Liverpool last week and a seven-year shirt sponsorship deal with United a day after Ewanick’s departure.)

The Wall Street Journal wrote: “GM told Mr Ewanick that he was being removed for failing to properly vet the financial details of a European soccer-sponsorship deal that he struck recently, according to people familiar with the matter.” That Ewanick tweeted a link to WSJ’s story would appear to lend it some weight.

Whether that is the real reason for his resignation, or just one of a series of internal disagreements, remains unclear. But it certainly appears to commentators as though his departure was acrimonious. In a terse but unusually candid statement from a company spokesman, GM’s Greg Martin simply said: “I can tell you that he failed to meet the expectations the company has for its employees.”

As company exits go, that’s about as damning as it gets.

Cameron Clarke is The Drum's Opinion Editor. You can send submissions for comment pieces and blogs to opinion@thedrum.com

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