-By Steve Miller

General Motors is doing everything it can to ensure that the next 100 years are better than the last few.

The company's 100th anniversary, officially targeted for Sept. 16, is giving GM reason to celebrate amidst plummeting sales and revenue and a significant cutback in media spend. Brand ads, via McCann Erickson, Birmingham, Mich., broke this week touting GM employee pricing for the public, similar to a deal offered in 2005. Live chats, roundtables and a live global Webcast all focus on GM's evolving technology. A Web site launched earlier this year, GMnext.com, dedicated to promoting GM's future, rather than past, has received 465 million impressions to date, according to Bill O'Neill, GM executive director of communications operations.

GM will break additional spots prior to Sept. 16 on network and cable.

The festivities coincide with GM's decision to abandon advertising during the Academy Awards (where it spent $13.5 million in media this past February, per TNS) and the Emmys, and also not to renew its 10-year, $1 billion sponsorship of the U.S. Olympic Committee when its contract ends after 2008.

GM's sales are down 17.7% through July, per Autodata, Woodcliff Lake, N.J., and the brand is seeking to boost liquidity by $15 billion by 2009 via a mix of spending cutbacks and job cuts. Its losses reached $15.5 billion in Q2, the third-worst dip in its 100-year history. The company spent $2.3 billion on U.S. ads in 2006 (not including online), just over $2 billion in 2007 and $871 million on ads January-May 2008, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

In putting together the GMnext.com site and the Sept. 16 events, GM assessed similar celebrations from the likes of Coca Cola, Harley-Davidson and Nestlé. "We found that they looked back, although some made attempts to also look at the future, and reviewed what they had accomplished mixed with come individual recognition," said O'Neill. "But we decided that we would use a program with the Web as its vascular system.

"We like the idea of sending a business message and having it be future driven. We are still paying tribute to our first 100 years. But out of that message, about 15% is about where we've been and 85% is about where we are going."

The anniversary gives GM a chance to talk about something other than its dismal performance this year—a drastic cutback in advertising, sales down 17.7% through July, deep fiscal losses—and instead to look ahead, said Dean Crutchfield, an independent brand consultant in New York. "It really challenges the norm, and it is a good time to do this," Crutchfield said. "People know who Chevrolet, Hummer, Pontiac are, but these new ads are noting both the anniversary of General Motors and also showing what brands are part of GM. It's an excellent way to raise awareness of what GM is."