How can general motors remake itself?

There used to be a saying that what's good for General Motors is good for America. But that was in the days when one of every two cars sold in the United States bore a G.M. brand name. Now, with its market share falling toward 25 percent, General Motors is struggling to revive its core business - selling America its cars, trucks and minivans - and seems in need of a few good ideas.

The problem is not the size of the General Motors advertising budget. Last year, the company spent almost $3 billion to advertise to American consumers, according to TNS Media Intelligence, second only to Procter & Gamble.

The extent of G.M.'s difficulties was underscored by a survey, taken last week by the trade publication Advertising Age, which asked its readers, "Can G.M. be fixed?" A startling 46 percent of the respondents replied no.

Even so, there remain many on Madison Avenue who believe that General Motors can turn around, although, as more than one executive said, it will not be easy. With the caveat that free advice can sometimes be worth what it costs, what follows are some of their suggestions, offered in interviews yesterday.

The most important step General Motors can take is "to reverse-engineer its marketing strategy," said Joseph Jaffe, president of Jaffe, a new-marketing consulting company in Westport, Conn., "from a top-down approach to a bottom-up approach."

"General Motors has forgotten who drives its cars," he added. "It all starts with one consumer, and you build from there."

To accomplish that, G.M. must accelerate a shift from its traditional "mass-market, one-size-fits-all approach," Mr. Jaffe said, as epitomized by broad-based television commercials and print advertisements, and more ardently embrace unconventional tactics. Among them, he listed producing video games that double as advertising; running ads in video games; inviting consumers to create their own ads, on Web sites; and making use of branded entertainment, embedding ads in television programs and movies.

That change would be particularly effective, said Michael Megalli, a partner at Group 1066, a corporate identity consulting company in New York, in reaching an audience that General Motors ought to court more to help alleviate its problems: younger consumers.

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