The Brief:
The 2008 North American International Auto Show was the scene of some big announcements for General Motors, and Weber Shandwick invited top automotive bloggers to cover the event. Bloggers were given an all-access pass to the Detroit show and face time with GM brass. But how to spread the word with social media video, and drive awareness of the new site GMnext.com?

coBRANDiT’s Role:
We sent a two-man video crew to cover the event, attending blogger dinners, press events, the show floor, and interviewing GM managers and auto industry bloggers about their take on the state of the industry and show announcements. Within two days we released 14 detailed videos on various social media sites, and built a cross-platorm video widget to allow easy sharing and embedding on relevant blogs and social networks. These videos were viewed thousands of times and resulted in increased traffic to Gmnext.

The GM Heritage Center has archived over 1000 vintage, custom, and show cars dating back to the turn of the last century. The Heritage Center is not open to the public, we get a rare tour of 200 of from Manager Greg Wallace. His current favorite? The '62 Bel Air 409, as in "She's real fine my 409."

A little extra detail on the Cadillac story, as told by Greg Wallace of GM's Heritage Center...including my personal fave car on display, the 1957 Eldorado Brougham.

A rare peek inside GM's Heritage Center with Manager Greg Wallace as our tour guide. In this piece Greg provides an overview of the Heritage Center's mission, and tells us about the unique Corvette in the lobby...it was designed by the women on Harley Earl's staff, whom he referred to as the "damsels of design."

GM invited us to shoot some video at the North American International Auto Show, held this week in Detroit. They gave us access to various GM pooh-bahs and introduced us to other invited bloggers, it's all a part of their GMnext 2008 program which celebrates the 100th year anniversary of GM.

Announcements were made regarding new introductions and concept cars (of course), but the big news was E85 ethanol and GM's investment in Coskata, a company that seems to have found a way to make E85 out of a renewable resource: trash. Click play to view our vids, enjoy!

Rick Wagoner announced an important venture with Coskata, a biofuel company that seems to have figured out how to make E85 ethanol out of trash, among other things. Here's the take from treehugger and USA today, above find video commentary we gathered at the Detroit autoshow on E85 and the announcement.

Commenters include Scott Atherton, President and CEO, American LeMans Series, Kjell ac Bergström, President & CEO of Saab Automobile AB Powertrain, and blogger Clayton Cornell of gas2.org.

GM's social media coordinator Adam Denison and bloggers invited to Detroit discuss GMnext's social media thinking and the much-anticipated Chevy Volt...a very cool looking plug-in hybrid due out in 2010. Featured bloggers include: Clayton Cornell of gas2.org, Matt Kelley of Next Gear, Matt Keegan The Auto Writer, and Joel Williams of Lifegoggles.com.

A tour of the Hummer HX concept, provided by design team member Robert Jablonski. This thing looks pretty darn sweet, but the coolest feature is the tactile rubberized digi-print flooring material. Nice! Or perhaps it's the flip-out holder for your iPod, which can capture trail video thru a mirror mounted camera.

More detail on the Hummer HX concept, this time with David Rojas, Lead Designer on the project and Brian Dooley of HummerGuy.net. Plus a few words from Sean Holman of Four Wheeler Magazine. And look at the celebs gathering 'round!

My introduction to Saab was when I was a kid riding in my Dad's brand new 1978 99EMS, so it was fun to hear how Saab's tradition of innovation continues. Saab brought the 9-4X Biopower concept and the Turbo X to the Detroit show, and Kjell Bergström, President & CEO of Saab Automobile AB Powertrain gave us some details on why E85 is a great fuel when matched up with a turbo. Also heard from Saab USA GM and Ryan Enge, the enthusiast behind Saabhistory.com

Tom Wallace, Corvette Vehicle Line Executive, General Motors, is also known as Mr. Corvette. Here's the peek he gave us of this American supercar.

GM's Cadillac and Saturn divisions are on the rebound with new designs and new energy. John Howell, Director of Global Products, Cadillac Division and Jill Lajdziak, General Manager, Saturn Division make their pitches.

David Tames of Kino-Eye was coBRANDiT's intrepid cameraman at the Detroit show. Here David shares his thoughts on GM's social media moves, and reflects on GM's centennial.