For Dan Akerson, a Magic Moment to Remake GM

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Part of Ewanick's new job is to get consumer feedback from his staff and bring it to the product team. He had GM cars sent to events in 24 cities to collect direct consumer feedback. And Ewanick has been known to talk to customers in focus groups about GM's products. Using that feedback, he advised design chief Ed Welburn that some future models might need bolder styling to grab attention among today's buyers. In other models, especially Buicks, he wants to push GM upscale with more creature comforts in the vehicles' interiors.

Ewanick prodded GM to declare Buick a luxury brand. Until he arrived, it was positioned as "near luxury" in the U.S., placing it beneath Cadillac in a hierarchy that was created by legendary Chairman Alfred P. Sloan in the 1930s. So now Buick is assigned the task of competing against Lexus with understated luxury, while Cadillac goes up against Audi and BMW with bolder design and more responsive handling. "Consumers don't want 'near'-anything," Ewanick says. "They don't want to buy a compromise."

Akerson, who ran long-distance company MCI when it introduced its trendsetting Friends & Family Plan marketing program, enjoys discussing the auto giant's marketing and meets with Ewanick to review ads. The GM chief, for example, vetoed some of the violent boxing footage in an early version of a commercial GM ran over the Thanksgiving holiday on concerns that some shots of a prizefighter being knocked down and then struggling up from the mat might be too intense for female viewers.

For a GM still struggling to gain its footing, the immediate challenge will be getting new products to market faster. The company in the past year has moved as many as 20 future models ahead of their original production schedules. It plans on fast-tracking even more, says Karl-Friedrich Stracke, GM's global vice-president of engineering. Still, the automaker has few new models scheduled for the next two years, while rival Ford (F) has several in the works. For a company seeking a second chance with consumers, a shortage of new cars could make for a tough revival.

The bottom line: General Motors' restructuring, which reduced labor and operating costs, has left it better able to concentrate on consumers and marketing.

Welch is Bloomberg Businessweek's Detroit bureau chief.