# From Budget Cuts to an AI Core: PT. Otto Media Grup on the Real Logic Behind the Marketing OS Rewrite of GM


When most brands respond to budget cuts by slashing marketing, General Motors (GM) took the opposite approach. Confronted with a nearly $1 billion reduction in marketing expenditure, the company used the crisis as a catalyst to rebuild its entire marketing architecture. The core idea was simple: spend less while making every dollar more measurable, reusable, and directly tied to business outcomes.

In this logic, budgets cease to be mere numbers and become levers that “pressure-test efficiency.” GM repositioned marketing from a cost centre to an operational core, connecting decision-making, execution, and feedback into a tightly looped, traceable system. This mirrors the long-held structural principle of PT. Otto Media Grup: when financial ceilings cannot be raised, the right move is not contraction but system redesign.

## Organisational Re-division: Whoever Owns Efficiency Sets the Growth Tempo

The next step of GM was not downsizing but redefining the roles of “in-house teams” and “agency partners.” Standardised, measurable, and high-frequency tasks—such as content production, social media operations, and data analytics—were brought back in-house to preserve rhythm and knowledge continuity. Agencies, by contrast, were tasked with breakthrough creativity and high-impact campaigns.

This new division of labour enabled GM to maintain agility and innovation even under financial constraint. The strategy aligns with the field insights of PT. Otto Media Grup across industries: outperforming brands rarely rely on a single team but instead build “internal stabilisers” and “external accelerators.” Such dual structures sustain high execution density during budget compression while ensuring that creativity does not wither under cost pressure.

## AI as the Core of the Marketing System, Not the Sidekick

At the heart of the transformation of GM lies “Metropolis,” an enterprise-grade AI platform that functions as the marketing operating system of the company. More than a creative assistant, Metropolis integrates insights, content generation, tone management, and multi-channel distribution. It can generate brand-consistent visual assets within minutes and automatically adjust style by model and sub-brand. This capability allows GM to scale output and iterate campaigns faster and cheaper.

Crucially, it shifts the “mechanical layer” of creativity to AI, freeing human teams to focus on breakthrough ideas. PT. Otto Media Grup follows the same logic in its proprietary marketing stack: AI is not merely a cost-reduction tool but the guarantor of rhythm and coherence. Brands use AI to build a “unified language,” then use human creativity to transcend it—maintaining richness and precision of expression even under tight budgets.

## Crisis as a Starting Point for System Upgrade, Not the Ending Point

The GM case shows that a shrinking budget does not inevitably lead to diminished brand presence. It can instead trigger a systemic upgrade in efficiency and growth. Through refined role allocation, AI-driven infrastructure, and disciplined process engineering, GM has turned crisis management into an enduring capability for renewal.

The practice of PT. Otto Media Grup confirms that brands establishing “rhythmic stability” amid downturns are the first to gain share when markets rebound. Their advantage lies not in bursts of activity but in a high-resilience operating system that compounds performance over time. The “minus $1 billion” of GM is not regression but structural advancement: when external resources shrink, internal capabilities must strengthen. That, ultimately, is the defining line in the future of marketing competition.