Now, I see that this was an entry in a "short film" contest that Chevrolet ran. More here.
IN THE COMMENTS: Rose said:
Just think how many of those got crushed during cash For Clunkers - that was sick.
September 3, 2011
How did Chevrolet manage to make such an effective commercial?
We use a DVR to scroll through the commercials, and this one was effective even when sped through. It also made us go back to watch it, and then rewind and watch it again. We both nearly cried both times!
Now, I see that this was an entry in a "short film" contest that Chevrolet ran. More here.
IN THE COMMENTS: Rose said:
Now, I see that this was an entry in a "short film" contest that Chevrolet ran. More here.
IN THE COMMENTS: Rose said:
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99 comments:
BINGO!
It's like seeing Dinah Shore singing. And, throwing kisses!
BEST AMERICAN AD I'VE SEEN ... Since remembering Dinah Shore ... "Put a Chevrolet in the USA" ... Not that I remember the words to old songs, exactly.
Blogger sez "the link at Alhouse" doesn't exist. What the fuck?
(the other kev)
I'll never buy another GM vehicle, but I'll admit this got me.
Have an old photo of me and my dad not too different from the one in the ad.
Dammit.
How did Chevrolet manage to make such an effective commercial?
Truck commercials are judged "effective" when they sell trucks, not when they give viewers the sniffles.
Dinah sang, "See the USA in a Chevrolet". She was always so perky.
No, 'fraid not.
There comes a time when you have to move on. And I was never that attached to sheet metal.
Besides, Chevy hasn't made a truck that lasts like that (if they ever did) in about 50 years.
Carol_Herman said...
BINGO!
It's like seeing Dinah Shore singing. And, throwing kisses!
BEST AMERICAN AD I'VE SEEN ... Since remembering Dinah Shore ... "Put a Chevrolet in the USA" ... Not that I remember the words to old songs, exactly.
The lyric is:
See the USA in your Chevrolet,
America is asking you to call,
Drive the USA in your Chevrolet,
America's the greatest land of all.
Mwah!!!
Doubtless Zero wouldn't approve of that kind of triumphalism, either.
"See the USA in your Chevrolet"
Didn't get it right the first time.
By my standards, that truck is new.
A decision based on sentimentality is touching, in this fake reality, aka a commercial.
In real life? I depends on who's deciding and who's paying the price for the decision, I guess. Fine and dandy when the decider is also the payer, as in this fake situation.
I don't think it wsa Dinah who sold Frigidaire by opening the front door. But it could'a been.
But back in those days, I think, commercials were a minute. And, "things" used to be made in America, too!
It's as if all the changes happened without anybody putting up much of a fight.
And, yet, here? The ad is taking a stand against obsolesce. It's saying KEEP THE TRUCK. Do the repair!
A neighbor of mine drives a 1978 Oldsmobile. When he replaced his "old" car ... it was one just like it, too.
Link fixed. Sorry.
I feel exactly the same about the R-27 and I have a picture with my Dad in front of it when he took me to Yankee stadium for the first time.
But times change.
Oh shucks.I guess I'm suffering from my O.L.D today.
Just think how many of those got crushed during cash For Clunkers - that was sick.
I can't blame GM from going back to the glory days. Those cars were something for their time.
However, it's a bit rude to use 'old GM' success stories when 'new GM' refuses to honor warranties or even repair major defects in cars made before the bailout. They want to be able to disclaim responsibility for their 2008 and prior cars, but they also want to take credit for the ones that were great (invariably VERY old ones).
GM isn't a company that honors its word or makes a good product. End of story. It's such a shame, as GM is very much a bit part of American history.
I've been driving a new 3/4 ton Yukon XL.
All things considered this "truck" is junk. The radio and nav and all sorts of other ergonomics suck. The seats suck. The gas tank really sucks a lot of gas, though there's not much you can do about that, since nobody offers a big (bigger than the Touareg: 7700lbs towing) diesel SUV.
Someday the Japanese will start making 3/4 (and 1) ton trucks and SUVs. Until then the quality of these sentimental commercials won't matter. The sale is guaranteed, if you want decent towing capacity.
Oldsmobile (before they got dropped) used to run a commercial saying "This isn't your father's Oldsmobile."
Chevy? Yeah, it's the exact one your dad owned.
So is this an advertisement to not buy a new Chevy truck; to just keep the one you have?
Answer: what this ad shows you is that GM's worst problem right now is that the public doesn't consider them truly American because of the bailout.
They're working to solve that problem first, then, if they do solve that problem, they'll get back to try to sell actually sell you a new truck.
My family has a photo of me age 6 with our white '62 Chevy Impala in the background that looks very much like the photo the guy pulls out of the glove compartment.
I learned to drive in a '68 Impala with no power steering. Practicing parallel parking over and over in that tank gave me a sore shoulder for a week!
The first car for the Mrs & me was a Chevy Cavalier in '84. What a piece of junk! Threw a rod at 65k miles! The next car: a Lexus GS300, which we still have 17 years and 165k later.
"Oldsmobile (before they got dropped) used to run a commercial saying "This isn't your father's Oldsmobile.""
Yeah, that was when my father bought an Oldsmobile. And now I'm 60. That was quite a while ago!
God. I must be cynical, jaded, too smart, or too dumb to appreciate that.
I mean, I get it and appreciate it, but to be moved to tears...
And lest you think me hardhearted; I used to get choked up watching the Chase commercial where the daddy pays for his daughter's wedding with his Chase credit card.
Yeah, let's talk about Impalas! My father passed along the family car to me to drive to school in about 1967. It was a '61 Impala convertible. Seafoam green. So cool!
"I mean, I get it and appreciate it, but to be moved to tears..."
It was the music that pushed us over the edge!
Two additional points:
1) The soundtrack music sounds to my ears much like the music to the LOTR movies. I wonder who was the composer for the commercial.
2) Ever notice how car ads are the glaring exceptions to the "dad's an asshole" theme that runs through so many commercials? I think that's because it's guys who buy the cars for everyone except single women.
The first car I ever bought was a '76 Chevette.
The only American car I ever bought. (Other than that, I've bought 2 VWs, 2 Hondas, and an Audi. Not too many cars, considering I'm 60.)
That kid better have a big balance in his account. Last year i went exclusively to my 1988 Toyota Landcruiser for a daily driver. First month it was a broken air conditioner. Next month the brakes failed. Couple of months later and the steering developed a problem. I could have leased a Bentley for what i have plowed back into the Landcruiser. Sentiment has a price.
I never was sentimental about a car.
Nevertheless it's a good commercial.
They're playing on a sentiment about sentiment about cars.
The picture in the glove compartment represents that.
Look in an actual glove compartment and wonder what all the useless junk is.
Here's the nicest ad I've seen recently here
HT to whoever it was
My '97 Chevy Astrovan has 250,000 miles on it with one major repair, a rear axle at 90,000. If it should ever die, and I do mean if, I will happily buy a 2005 Astro, the last year they were made.
Is it really smart to advertize the fact that you used to make great cars - and now you don't?
It's interesting that I'm no longer a car nut. I love mechanical objects - guitars, amps, pianos, tools for the shop and garden. Still, the commercial made me misty - mostly effective music.
Look in an actual glove compartment and wonder what all the useless junk is.
I thought he was going to take out his gun. I guess that wouldn't do for a gov't motors ad.
I learned to drive on my father's 1938 Plymouth truck. All my friends did, too. We used to sneak it out of the garage when my dad wasn't home, then one day it snowed after we had taken it out. We were ratted out by Mother Nature.
I like the ad and some of the other GM commercials that are out now, too. But, and it is a big but, we will NEVER buy another GM product. After what the unions did to get their dough and our illustrious leader screwed the debt holders to make sure the unions got what they wanted there is no way GM will ever get a freaking dime of my money, US company or not.
Ever notice how car ads are the glaring exceptions to the "dad's an asshole" theme that runs through so many commercials? I think that's because it's guys who buy the cars for everyone except single women.
Maybe. On the other hand, beer commercials routinely portray men (not explicitly dads, as of course no children are shown) as schmucks and morons, even though men buy a lot more brewski than women do. I also believe that plenty of non-single women buy cars these days.
Peter
I have never bought a GM product.
I owned one given to me by my parents when I was in college. I watched my father stay loyal to GM through several vehicles that were lemons, including the last one (an Oldsmobile) which was actually classified as such under Wisconsin's "lemon law" statute. Since then he has owned a raft of Honda and Nissan products. He'll never be back, no matter how touching the emotions in their promotional campaigns get.
Me? after the bailouts (including the $17.8B in late 2008, under Bush) and the abusive bankruptcy treatment of bondholders (and other stakeholders) in GM and Chrysler in 2009 - no way am I going to buy either of those products. Ford? Maybe.
This kind of sentimental approach neatly avoids a lot of bad, incredibly unreliable vehicles that Chevrolet and the rest of GM put out over the years when they didn't care.
Besides, Chevy hasn't made a truck that lasts like that (if they ever did) in about 50 years.
Not exactly a Chevy, but close - I have a mid 1990s GMC 3/4 ton Suburban with >300k miles. Got it cheap when gas was so high several years ago, and it still runs great. Needs a new driver's seat and ultimately a starter motor, and the freon (or whatever they used then) needs to be recharged from 2 years ago. But, it goes anywhere, and hauls a lot.
Thought I might do the Cash for Clunkers thing with it, but didn't need a new car - I also have an Audi A6 and a Chevy Tahoe.
The Tahoe is 1/2 ton, ten years newer, but gets worse gas miles per gallon on the freeway (but almost anything gets better mileage going up and down hills in Colorado than the Suburban).
The first car I can remember was a 1950 or so 2 door Chevy, which got traded in for a 1956 Chevy station wagon, and then bought back so my mother had a car. My then bought two Corvairs, which is what I learned to drive. Then, my grandmother gave my brother and me her 1967 Chevy Bel Aire for college, when she bought herself a Buick in 1969. My brother and I put 100k on the Bel Aire in two years in college, all except for maybe 2k in Colorado. My mother had it towed away one day from the front of her house in the mid 1970s after it had maybe 200k, and was not appropriate for the neighborhood.
And, that was my last Chevy, or even American car, until I got the Suburban and Tahoe three years ago. Mostly driven Audi Quattros since then, esp. when living in Colorado. But now, in N. Nevada, the big SUVs seem to just fit in and work better. At my office, on any given day, you would probably see either two Tahoe like vehicles (my secretary had a white Yukon to match my white Tahoe), two Suburbans, a 3/4 ton Toyota extended cab pickup and a Suburu wagon, unless I drove the Suburban... Apparently, better than half the vehicles that the local non-denominational automotive shop works on are either these big GM SUVs or the matching GM trucks. Still.
How much did GM spend on the contest? Impending doom of ad and marketing agencies. Doom of ad, marketing, and supportive staff jobs. Contestants, probably unemployed, worked for free in hope of improbable future payoffs.
Another industry disappears into thin air. Sad, yes?
Luckily, "cash for clunkers" only applied to cars & trucks that were registered.
There are lots still around that had no valid registration and are still "preserved."
@IRIW,
"I also believe that plenty of non-single women buy cars these days."
Peter, I think, even in this liberated day and age, very few women buys cars without major input from the men in their lives, be it dad, brother, husband, significant other, etc.
I think it's "schmuck" beers that feature male buffoons (e.g. Budweiser), where beer is marketed as a lubricant to social mayhem. The microbrews that aim at a wealthier audience (e.g. the Dos Equis' Most Interesting Man in the World campaign) seem to have a higher opinion of their customers.
One of the very few recent commercials that presents dads in a non-doofus light is one for Jif peanut butter. Dad builds a tree house for his young daughter, telling her it's like the one his father once build for him, and the appreciative girl rewards Dad with a Jif peanut butter sandwich. The tagline is "Choosy Dads Choose Jif," a variant on the more familiar "Choosy Moms" version. The whole ad is very respectful to fatherhood, and shows that a dad need not be a hapless loser.
Peter
Cash for Clunkers didn't just crush them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0IcIxhd8ks
Sick. Makes me sick.
I've been buying and driving pickups since '73. That ad is dumb and wouldn't sway any self-respecting truck owner an iota. I can see that it might influence said truck owner's spouse to let up a bit on the resistance to a new purchase.
As for Chevy, it's impressive how they're handling the suspension warrantees on the '07 and '08 Impalas, isn't it? "Like a Rock"...yeah, right.
vw = malcar Couldn't have said it better.
"a 3/4 ton Toyota extended cab pickup "
Are you sure?
I'm fairly sure that the Tundra is a 1/2 ton. That is, I've never seen one w/ it has more than five/six lugs per wheel, which is an easy visual tell. I don't know of a bigger Toyota truck.
Separately, why are folks emotionally attached to the clunkers that were crushed? It's not like they were cool cars, like my 1935 Packard.
And, you idiots who whine about the bondholders are truly, truly dumb. That paper was garbage, and it had been trading in the free market for pennies on the dollar. What insane gov was going to pay full price to the holders of that trash? Turn off your professional conservatives, and think.
I think there is an interesting legal question here, first brought up by Dustin. That is, GM is claiming in court, right now, that it is "the new GM". The "old GM" is the one with the warranties, the one that should be the defendant in various shitty product lawsuits.
So, isn't this commercial an admission by "new GM", that they are, in fact, "old GM". They want to have their cake and eat it too. They are in court saying legally, they have nothing to do with the company that made those trucks, while simultaneously saying on TV that the ARE the same company that made those trucks. Not sure if the courts should allow them to have it both ways.
"edutcher said...
Besides, Chevy hasn't made a truck that lasts like that (if they ever did) in about 50 years."
What? I have a '94 Chevy with 300,000+miles. Red. 5-speed on the floor. 4.3l Vortec V6. Awesome truck.
BTW, the thing not true from the commercial is that they are very inexpensive to maintain...parts are cheap because they used the same stuff for years and there are still tons of old Chevy trucks still in use. I replaced the L/R front rotors, calipers, pads, and brake linesfor under $125.
Wife and I will never buy a GM or Chrysler product again, regardless of how great the ad is. We just purchased a Kia and so has m software engineer son.
The old truck running would sell for maybe $2000-$2500. Said it would cost more to fix than currently worth. What $2500-$3000? A new equivalent truck will cost over $25,000. Most families can't afford that today. I'd fix it too.
3/4 and 1 ton Toyota's were available in the 1980's. Mid to late 80's they had extra cabs. Maybe B.H. 9/3/11 8:05 PM drives a really old Toyota.
Oh yeah. I got yer Chevy & raise you a Ford.
Take your tissues:
From 2005
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFVQKLjLXgM
The other day I pulled my car into a space. And, right next to my car was a brand new NISSAN "JUKE" ... Did I say it was 4 door? And, Black?
My son and daughter-in-law are looking for a car for her. And, I sent him an email. Just asking if he's seen this car. No. He said he had not. But when his Honda Hit eventually "goes" ... he said he really liked this Nissan "Juke."
As to ads that can tear me up ... (not that I see them anymore. Because I tossed the TV). Hallmark's used to make me cry.
Did this improve their brand?
Do people buy cards to send, anymore?
Great ads, though, are a compliment to creativity.
Back in the old days, Doyle, Dane & Bernbach was considered a very creative firm. But everyone on their creative floor was crazy. So if you looked, in the lobby, for their floors? This one was never listed. And, never, ever, shown to clients!
After all these years? A creative ad like Chevy's definitely deserves notice. But I couldn't help it. Where were all the customers?
And, why was the glove compartment so empty?
Ford's just made a series of commercials that shows Ford owners in mock press conferences. It's made to seem as if the owner is surpised when an “interview” turns out to be a full-fledged media event. In one, a truck owner is asked if “buying American” was important to him, and he answers “I wasn’t going to buy a car that was bailed out by our government” and that the American way is to succeed or fail on your own, picking yourself up when you stumble. That’s a strong charge Ford’s thrown down, and I’m impressed with their courage in running it. It will be interesting to see the responses it generates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_mwjaEI_hM&feature=related
Effective? In what way? Commercials are supposed to make consumers want to buy the product being advertised. While I feel sorta sorry for the guy in the commercial, I don't want to rush out and buy a Chevy.
The guy lives in a town where apparently there are no other vehicles and no other people, just him, a woman and a kid, and a sleazy mechanic. What kind of place is that, and did the guy kill everyone else??
The guy, the woman and the kid look like they are struggling financially, yet he stupidly writes a blank check to the sleazy mechanic to do "whatever it takes" to fix his truck. I don't want to buy a Chevy because I don't want to ever have to write a blank check to a sleazy mechanic.
They guy is a pathetic emo jerk, when you think about it. He's emotionally fractured because his truck has a boo-boo. What will happen when something really bad happens, like death of a loved one, or dread disease? You can't rely on this guy to deal with it. He's a man/child with no emotional strength.
Besides, the emo guy appears to not have a clue what is wrong with his beater truck. Own a wrench, bub? Aren't you even able to figger out why your worn out truck doesn't run? C'mon, even if he's an emo dweeb, a case of beer and a couple of buddies should be able to figure it out and fix it, no blank check needed. Where's the brother in law?
The more I think about it, the more I like the mechanic. At least he has a purpose - separating emo guy from his money.
So is it an effective commercial? Sure, Ann and Meade almost cried, but shjit, they're not going to buy a Chevy truck, ever. So no, it is not an effective commercial.
"For years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country."
GM President Charles Wilson 1/15/53
So GM has gone from being conducive to the welfare of the county to being on the welfare.
The old GM . . . that once commanded a cadre of loyal customers now has new owners. Who's to say they'll remain loyal? When your favorite restaurant comes under new ownership, and that ownership has a reputation for serving bad food elsewhere, do you keep eating there? Only if you want food poisoning.
I personally will never buy another GM or Chrysler vehicle - I am voting with my feet.
Two years ago I bought a '94 Ford F250, only 84K miles, one owner before me. $4500 with a canopy, 8 foot bed, 2WD, 7.5 liter gas engine. I get 10 mpg highway.
I use it every weekend. I'm certain it will never die.
God bless craigslist.
Best thing about buying a big mother of a truck?
Skirt refuses to drive it.
Heh.
How did Chevrolet manage to make such an effective commercial?
Maybe they used non-union labor?
Mind you, I don't think it really is all that effective as an ad. Doesn't it convey the message that you should hang onto your old Chevy pickup instead of buying a new one?
My response to this commercial was the same as Michael Haz's. This commercial was sappy, didn't make much sense and didn't make me want to buy the product. In other words, it didn't do what a commercial is supposed to do.
And anyway, if you want a good pickup truck, buy a Ford.
@Michael Haz These are all good points. I think what worked is the strengthening or revival of a deep-rooted tie to a traditional American brand. The name and the cross symbol. It said there are emotional bonds that matter in ways unconnected to money, that are about family and country and memory.
You can't buy that truck, and whatever that truck means to that man isn't really available to you, but maybe you feel some longing for meaning and connection, and if you buy a Chevy, you could feel that too.
I thought that was effective. It might nudge me toward buying one of the currently available products if I was already somewhere near wanting one of them. Wouldn't need to be a truck.
There is something to brand loyalty, and an awful lot of Americans used to feel loyal to Chevy, back when you mostly either got a Chevy or a Ford. I never had that, though. I grew up with Nashes. Then there was that Impala. Then my father bought a Pontiac, and then an Oldsmobile. So we weren't really that brand loyal in my family.
I do feel loyal to some brand names. I like the salt to be Morton's and the mayonnaise to be Hellman's. It just looks right.
But for a car... I go on the current features, the looks, and the quality. Thinking like that, I haven't even checked out a Chevy since I bought one in 1976.
Isn't this an allegory for the actual GM bailout? GM was broke and too costly to fix but due to sentimentality (and a whole lot of union juice) a blank check was written by the US govt: "just fix it."
Buy a new truck, dude! Create new traditions!
The reason that this ad is even worthy of analysis is that it was made by amateurs. The professionals rely too much on focus groups and other things they learned in school, and though they would kill for an emotional response to their advertising they've been sophisticated out of the ability to elicit one.
Very nice, but a bit heavy with the musical mood.
@Carol_Herman: Life is completer in a Chevy!
Michael Haz nailed it.
Both the Dinah Shore ad and this latest piece of sentimental garbage present a vehicle brand as a component of a person's identity -- you're not a complete person without your Chevrolet. They're peddling a kind of codependency. Yuck.
"I do feel loyal to some brand names. I like the salt to be Morton's and the mayonnaise to be Hellman's. It just looks right."
I like the salt to be sel gris du Paludier and the mayonnaise to be homemade, but I can sympathize, except that so many of the products that I consider definitive of their types have been discontinued, such as Crystal White Octagon liquid dish detergent, original scent Lysol, and frozen concentrated Five Alive fruit juice...
Being a non-driver, the only cars I've ever felt nostalgic about are the ones I grew up around and tinkered with: a Ford Model T of unknown age, a 1953 MG TD, a 1970 Ford Maverick, and a 2-door hardtop 1973 Chrysler Newport. There's a motley fleet of vehicles for you.
"you're not a complete person without your Chevrolet. They're peddling a kind of codependency. Yuck."
Maybe if you live in NYC.
Otherwise...we are dependent on our cars.
And, I wouldn't have it any other way. I love being on the road in America. And I love taking my race car on the track. Hell, I love running errands in my car. And, I love being able to drive a different car each day of the week. I'm more than dependent, I'm addicted, in a good way.
A guy who depends on a beat up piece of shit that's tempermental on cold mornings to drive to the plant that will probably be closing next year is not all that sentimental about his fucking wheels. Also, his wife probably got fat in the years since he first bought that truck, and he's not all that sentimental about her either.....Movies and ads create a parallel universe that is so much nicer than the one we inhabit. But it's good to see that such an ad doesn't trigger a gag reflex in most people. Who would want to live in a world where people didn't love their old Chevy trucks?
I do become very attached to my vehicles. I've always bought for the long haul. I knew a guy once, fellow engineer, who bought new every two years and didn't even bother to change the oil. Knew it wouldn't be him driving when it seized up.
While I will not buy another GM car, I do love my 96 Oldsmobile (>180k miles.) Flushed the radiator this afternoon, discovered oil. Now I have to make that same dreaded decision of fix or not.
I must be jaded. I thought the commercial was corny.
Then I wanted to know exactly what needed fixing. Because I didn't like the attitude of the mechanic. Lots of balls telling me to go out and buy a new... Chevy. Next I assumed the truck had gotten there under its own power, and therefore could just as easily drive away under its own power. And away we went.
Christy said:
Flushed the radiator this afternoon, discovered oil. Now I have to make that same dreaded decision of fix or not.
My gawd, that's like blood in your urine!
Flushed the radiator this afternoon, discovered oil.
Head gasket. Exacerbated by the flushing.
That ad was so effective that I ran out and bought a road bike...and a bike rack for my Lexus.
The music reminds me of the melancholy theme for the TV series Twin Peaks.
Right. That is a piece of America that doesn't exist any more, that's what is so sad. The time when we built stuff in America.
We the people bought GM for a stock price of 27 CENTS, when and the criminal Usurper and his Banker handlers illegally bought the old junker with Tarp. They polished her up put lipstick on that pig (and took a bat to the knees of Toyota in the preocess) and said "Presto!! GM IPO-- now Government Motors is worth $33 DOLLARS"!!!
Imagine, we bought it for 27 CENTS, and they tried to say it was worth 33 DOLLARS a couple years later (and still was a loss, no matter what the Usurper administration tells you.)!!!!!
Well now the stock price is at 22 DOLLARS---- Sold to You.
wv: grativa--- Thanks a million.
Doesn't Chevy know it can't just make money on trucks and SUVs? That it's got to understand the market?? That the president's administration has "turned around" the auto industry which, in turn, will just have to change the way it does business???
It's a well-done ad, but effective? I don't know. We're in the market for a new truck and this ad didn't persuade me to reconsider Chevy.
WV: olightsm: the semi-religious, ideological doctrine embracing Barack Obama as the Light of the New Age; considered a cult.
So there are a couple of issues here: 1. Does this family want to be stuck with a car payment for 6 or 7 years? 2. What is the liklihood that the truck will have another significant breakdown in the near future?
In other words, what are the economics of the thing? Doesn't look to me like that family is independently wealthy, so the idea of pouring unlimited resources into this truck is unlikely.
The only logical conclusion is that they think the truck still has some shelf-life.
Emotion aside, of course.
Forget the visuals - its all the score. Go LISTEN to Lord of the Rings, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Psycho, Gone With the Wind, Doctor Zhivago, Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, The Magnificent Seven, Spartacus, Crouching Tiger, the Piano, Blue Velvet - and hundreds more.
I hate it when cellos make my throat close up.
Did you notice the little kid with the "O" symbol looking through the window?
Obvious subliminal message.
I've watched the ad again. It really is aimed at women, not at men.
The message is "Let your man buy the (Chevy) truck that he wants. The truck will give your man a lifetime bond with the boy, just like that old truck his dad bought way back when created a lifetime bond with your man. And if he and the boy bond a bit more, maybe the guy won't go chasing skirts, so it's win-win for you."
Or maybe it's just a GM sponsored metaphor for ObamaCare. Replace the truck with beloved old Grandpaw, and have the guy telling the MD to do "whatever it takes" to fix Grandpaw as he signe the insurance authorization papers.
Okay, I'll go make coffee now.
Gack. Just terrible tripe. Poorly produced and poorly acted. The kid in the beginning is terrible. Just a hoke-fest all around. I didn't buy a second of it.
When I look at the commercial all I can think of is whether the wife is shaved.
Captcha: unpeedgm
Peter
It's just stuff.
"Are you OK? How is the truck?"
Sheesh. It's like the thing had a biopsy. And has a pulse.
Of course, my opinions may be due to both pieces of GM crap I owned cost me a lot in repairs and wasted time. I actually had a customer service rep in Flint tell me (in 1974) on the phone "That's the way we make them." The wokmanship was shitty, the design was poor on both cars. I've been a Honda man ever since.
And there's this - pity the poor bastards duped into buying that crap!
Not too many cars, considering I'm 60.
That's because you've been buying Japanese cars.
Which is a good thing.
Mian said...
Isn't this an allegory for the actual GM bailout? GM was broke and too costly to fix but due to sentimentality (and a whole lot of union juice) a blank check was written by the US govt: "just fix it."
Didn't occur to me, but that is a very good point. To better parallel the actual bailout, however, the man would have written the check over his wife's objections.
To better parallel the actual bailout, however, the man would have written the check over his wife's objections.
...and borrow more money than they could ever pay back, too.
The movie Field of Dreams awakened marketers to the idea that you can make a grown man blubber by pulling memories of Dad from the rag and bone shop of his heart.
So this commercial is sweet and effective in evoking that feeling. It may be less an effort to sell cars at the moment than to create emotional ties in a branding effort.
That works poorly with the facts on the ground, that old GM is dead, and that they have a poor reputation.
Very nicely done. It's almost enough to make one forget that Chevy is built by the "Federal family". I was surprised to discover however that Leni Riefenstahl is still working. She can sure make a commercial.
The name and the cross symbol
It's called a bowtie.
My brother bought a used Chevy van with zero options, mostly to move his rock band around. It was eventually parked at our church for occasional use. Someone stole it--and brought it back.
Effective ad, althought three thoughts hit me:
1.) Wouldn't he be better off taking the insurance settlement and then buying the truck back as scrap?
2.) Do new Chevy trucks suck that bad?
3.) Does he have his father's corpse rotting in the basement?
I'm a Jeep man myself, and hoping my current one will last til I die so I won't have to face the choice whether to buy another. I did own a '66 Impala handed down from my grandpa (yes, in seafoam!, but not a cool convertible like the Professor's) and a '68 Biscayne. I loved 'em both, and I ran them both into all sorts of things without noticeable damage. Those were the days.
The ad is effective at evoking an emotional response in which the brand plays favorably, and that's always a good thing. But it will increase sales only if you play it in the showroom, because a moment's thought reveals (1) the protagonist isn't being loyal to Chevy, he's being loyal to his old man, (2) the protagonist rejects an attempt to get him to buy a new Chevy truck, and the viewer is encouraged to think he has made the right choice, and (3) even if you ignore the protagonist's loyalty to his old man, he actually did make the right choice, because his fixed-up old Chevy is likely to be a better truck than a new Chevy would be.
Now, that Ford ad linked above by Harris Trinsky, that makes me want to go out and buy a new truck.
...and borrow more money than they could ever pay back, too.
"Son, about that college thing. Let me tell you a story about your granddad's truck."
This ad told me to keep my old Chevy and forget the new junk.
I forget what it was for, but there was an ad whose punch line was "My wife, I think I'll keep her." Maybe that's the subliminal content of this ad. He's not going to treat the old truck like a rusting piece of junk and buy a super-wow SUV to replace it. No, this man has values. This is not the kind of guy who will replace his spouse with a trophy wife when her option year comes due. No, this guy is committed to things that last. Start discarding old trucks like they're some kind of old machine, then who knows where it was stop. For whatever reason, this ad seems to have more resonance with women than men.
I forget what it was for, but there was an ad whose punch line was "My wife, I think I'll keep her."
Geritol. A vitamin pill for old people. My mom HATED that commercial.
It was a cute film but as a commercial it would have been more effective if the film ended with the father, mother and son getting into their new Chevy pickup.
Reproducing the scene of the old photo with the current father standing by the new truck with his son would have been smart too.
Ronnie Schreiber
Cars In Depth
"And, you idiots who whine about the bondholders are truly, truly dumb. That paper was garbage, and it had been trading in the free market for pennies on the dollar. What insane gov was going to pay full price to the holders of that trash? Turn off your professional conservatives, and think."
Sigh. A reason to buy those bonds is because you are first in line to be paid if the company goes under. Which is why people bought garbage paper. What insane gov was going to pay full price? One that had respect for law and contracts. But if law and contracts are only to be respected if convenient, then there are a lot of things on your side of the street we should be more flexible about. Turn off your professional dumbassness and think!
I don't understand this commercial. When at the beginning the man's wife asks him if he is okay, that suggested to me that the man and his truck were in a crash. I mean no one would suffer an emotional collapse just because the clutch went out.
But when you see the truck, there's no evidence of a wreck. So why did the mechanic tell the man he was getting a new truck, unless he was implying that the insurance company was going to replace his truck (with a new one?)
Someone said the man signed a blank check to his mechanic at the end. I didn't get that. I couldn't tell what he signed. And who signs a blank check anyway? The last time I had to put a new (well used) engine in my Honda CRV I just told my mechanic to buy one and put it in and when the car was ready I went in and paid for it. No paying in advance to my neighborhood mechanic.
I thought the ad was both emotional and illogical. Unless I missed something big time (which wouldn't be the first time).
I find the Subaru "Baby Driver" ad even more touching. The guy is talking to his teen age daughter but sees her as a little girl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qf8OGLqE1s
I look forward to the commercial where the electrician tells the Chevy Volt owner it would be so expensive to replace the battery that it would be cheaper to buy a new vehicle.
Assuming, of course, that anyone will still be producing new vehicles in 2013.
"That's because you've been buying Japanese cars.
Which is a good thing
Actually, 3/5 were German. And if they were BMW's instead of VW's, she could have eliminated the Honda's.
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