GM: Denali renaming hoopla won't help GMC trucks

DETROIT -- As far as General Motors' GMC brand is concerned, people are making a molehill out of a mountain.

The brand name for the Denali may get a little more notice from President Obama's plan change the name of North America's tallest peak -- back to its original moniker. Alaska's Mt. McKinley will be known again as Denali, though to auto enthusiasts, it's better known as GMC's sub-brand of luxury vehicles.

"It had no impact or change on our strategy," says spokeswoman Kelly Wysocki of GMC, GM's upscale all-truck brand.

Nor does she expect having the new "old" mountain name in news to impact sales

General Motors first introduced Denali as an upscale trim level on the 1999 GMC Yukon full-size SUV in 1999, but now is a sub-brand of eight individual models, according to the company. To date, more than 800,000 have been sold. More than half of all GMC Yukons sold currently are Denalis, while nearly half of all Sierra HDs and 30% of Acadias last year were Denalis, too.

"The name itself means 'the high one.' For us, it's the ultimate expression of our professional grade. That's our motto at GMC," Wysocki said. "It reflects back to Denali. It did have to do with Mt. McKinley."

The 20,237-foot mountain's original name stems from the Koyukon Athabaskan language of Alaska natives, but was re-christened Mt. McKinley in 1896 to honor of Ohio Republican William McKinley, who then was running for president and would become the 25th person to hold the office. (He was assassinated by Michigan native Leon Czolgosz in 1901.)

"It's a great thing for the Alaskans that's it will be named what it should've been named originally," said Kristyn King, a 39-year-old nurse from Eastpointe, Mich., who drives a black 2006 GMC Envoy Denali, but didn't know the origin of the sub-brand's name. "I think more people will know now. They'll recognize the name as being the 'higher point.'"

Some branding experts think the Detroit automaker should jump on the back-to-Denali designation before all the chatter melts away faster than some snow on Mt. McKinley, er, Denali.

"It's the kind of publicity GM really couldn't pay for, because you have the leader of the free world now talking about the product and talking about the actual name," said Hajj Flemings of Brand Camp University in Birmingham, Mich. "That alone gives more credence and more visibility to GM and they could ride on that. If I were GM, I would look for ways to take that moment and develop some momentum around it. There's a life cycle to it. In a month from now, we won't be talking about it. What the brand needs to do is leverage that."

The White House announced the name change on Sunday, though U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell signed the secretarial order on Friday. The then-governor of Alaska first made the mountain name-change request in 1975.

The name of the national park where the mountain is situated was changed back to Denali in 1980.