Time of death. 5:04 pm on September 30, 2009.
The life support systems are slowly removed. There’s an eerie silence in the room after the monitors are shut down. Heads are bowed. I can only imagine that was the scene in the board room in Detroit yesterday when Saturn breathed its last breath.
I was there when Saturn was born. A shiny baby sedan screaming into the world. Who couldn’t love this little car? It was the perfect child of GM. Right out of the womb it proved itself to be low maintenance, reliable and a personality to boot!
There were some troubles during the teenage years and that’s when big bad daddy GM stepped in and sent Saturn to military school. Our baby changed. The spirit beat out of it. It had to conform.
And so it began to act out. Started running with the wrong crowd. And eventually, died too young.
Even though my last words were harsh and riddled with disappointment, I hope that Saturn knows all the joy it brought me. From my first SC1 Toonces, to Buttercup the SL2, my gorgeous Daisy VUE, Ruby the ION and now Sunkist the leaky windshield VUE.
We’ve had some good times. You will be remembered.
The 2020 Vision of Marketing 
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October 1, 2009 at 5:10 am
Sara
You have me beat – we’ve had three Saturns, and they have all been great to us for longer than they should have. They’ll be missed.
October 1, 2009 at 7:57 am
Eric Jones
D – A fitting obit. Thanks so much for sharing your Saturn adventures, trial and travails with us. I, too, was once a proud Saturn owner, but lost faith in those who asked me to believe even as they clearly did not.
It’s fitting in some skewed and ironic universe — this one — that one of GM’s best ideas in the last half century is now officially dead just as Michael Moore comes back to the sliver screen louder and prouder than ever before. Maybe his new film should be actually be titled: “Capitalism: A Story of Love … and Loss.”
October 1, 2009 at 7:57 am
Vicki Owens
I heard this on the news this morning and I thought of you. 🙂 RIP Saturn. You were great back in the day.
October 1, 2009 at 9:35 am
Denise Wymore
Thanks all for the comments. It does feel like a death in the family to some extent.
Saturn helped me understand and teach real customer service. How to narrowly target, go beyond satisfaction to choreographing wows and measuring and managing loyalty. Even in the early days I would have nay sayers in my audience that would challenge the concept. Usually stating that Saturn did not post record profits that year, or some other economic indicator.
I often wondered why these people wanted Saturn to fail. I’m sure there are some people that read about Saturn’s demise last night and thought “See, service doesn’t matter. They couldn’t make any money being nice to people.” And they would be wrong.
Service, like any other product in business must be measured and managed – it doesn’t just happen. GM had literally no experience in that area which is why the Saturn division started from scratch.
I’ve said it many times, and I’ll say it again: Corporations don’t have values, people do. If you read this article in CNN – you’ll see why Saturn failed. The people leading the brand changed. GM did not share the same values as the Saturn team. So when it got “turned back over” it became just another brand.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/01/autos/death_of_saturn.fortune/?postversion=2009100110
October 1, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Denise Wymore
My friend Susan pointed me to a great story about Saturn on Ad Age.
http://adage.com/article?article_id=139370
I loved this comment from Rod in San Francisco.
The cautionary tale is this: in marketing, positioning and advertising are one’s clothing; but product quality is at one’s core. And in the end, it is not clothing that defines the man. We ad people are good haberdashers. We can generate attention, and lead the consumer’s attention to the most alluring parts of the brand’s package, but that’s it…. that’s all we can do.
If the fundamentals are not there, it’s hard to sustain the illusion.
Nevertheless, it’s a sad day. The brand is still worth much.
October 1, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Tom
just wonder if anyone from Saturn every connected you with all your post
so sad and wonder who will be the next big company to fail because they do not understand who and what thier customer wants or needs?
RIP –