Legal Commentary

Have you been watching the recent commercials for General Motors?  (See here.)  In an audacious move to celebrate GM's 100th anniversary, the company decided to stop giving employees a discount on GM cars.  Not only that, they are spending millions and millions of dollars to advertise the decision to end (at least for a while) a substantial employee perk.  The people in the commercial are supposed to be GM employees.  What are they so happy about?

No doubt, you are already familiar with psychological framing effects.  For example, stores typically tout their cash discounts, though they could just as easily tout their credit card surcharges.  Similarly, though GM bills its plan as the "Employee Discount for Everyone," it could also be billed as a discount for no one.  Shhh!!!! 

As it happens, GM has halted employee discounts in the past.  The last "Employee Discount for Everyone" was quite successful, and they have no doubt returned to it with an even bigger promotional budget.  And their cars probably are selling at good prices.  But pitching that the cars are well priced is apparently less enticing than pitching GM's decision to stiff its employees.  Mad men, indeed!