• Chevy. Why do they think I would want to buy one of their cars after being assured by them over and over that it is “Like a Rock?” It’s been a long time since I’ve owned a car, but I recall its chief charm being its ability to transport me from Place A to Place B. The very raison d’ être of a rock, however, is to sit there and not move, ever. Why does Chevy think I would buy a car that cannot be moved without the aid of a bulldozer or dynamite?
• Buick. Who the hell is “Harley Earl” and why has his ghost returned from the dead to design new Buicks? Is Buick that hard-up for talented designers that they have to go meddling in the afterlife? Was Harley Earl some famous car designer I’ve never heard of, or just some character Buick has invented out of thin air to frighten Tiger Woods in those commercials? Earl—judging by his wardrobe—seem to have lived in the 1930s–40s, so one can only hope some Buick copywriter didn’t tell Tiger, “You ever see Maitlin Moreland? Ya think you can bug out your eyes and go, ‘feets, don’t fail me now?’”
Harley Earl was and still is one of the most famous auto designers ever. He invented the tail fin and designed the original Corvette, among other things.
Just for smart aleky folk like you, Buick has even gone so far as to include a brief bio of Earl in the print Ads.
[quote] from the link
As car companies spend millions of dollars each year advertising new car models, consumers rarely question who designs the cars that appeal to our individual style. While the style of a car may be just as important to us as how the car runs, automobile manufacturers did not begin to pay attention to car designs until the 1920s. It was not until 1927, when General Motors decided to hire designer Harley Earl to displace Ford Motors prominence in the automotive world that design became important. What Henry Ford did for the automobile is what Harley Earl did for car design.[/quote}
I hate all car advertisements, anyway. Does Detroit really think I’m going to trot out and make an impulse buy of a Chevy Malibu or whatever because I saw a commercial during some sit-com or flipped over a photo while reading a People Magazine article?
If they’d funnelled all that ad money into R&D, we’d all be flying around with jet-packs by now.
Hey Uke, do you REALLY want the average idiot to have a jet pack? I mean really, imagine the idiots we all curse at on the road, flying around above our heads. If it comes to pass, I am investing in steel umbrellas.
I kinda like the nostalgic air it gives them. 'Course, I think most new cars are ugly, but it gives a sense that at one time there were, in fact, great cars with great designers on the drawing boards.
What really gets me is the actor they chose.
John Diehl, as in the ultra-crooked cop from The Shield and previously in both Stargate and Stripes. Kinda high-profile actor to play a ghost, eh?
As bad as car ads are, at least we’re back to actually seeing the car (or parts of it).
I really hated those ethereal “essence of the product” car ads. Music and voice-over, leaves swirling in the wind on a lonely mountain road, something having just swooshed by…
And will someone please tell the local dealers we don’t want to actually SEE the owner, or his kids, or his freaking family? Fette looks like Lurch after a month on the Crisco diet.
OK, so apparently I am not hep to the history of auto designers. Harley Earl was a real person, now dead, I assume? And Buick has utilized the forces of darkness to conjure up his ghost to design cars? They must have Harley’s ghost chained, somehow—I have to believe he’d rather go out on the town, goosing showgirls and seeing what’s new, rather than spending his time at Buick working for free. Are the spirits of long-dead assembly-line workers also toiling for Buick, in some kind of hellish afterlife? Are their tortured screams heard for miles around?
Now, will someone explain to me why it’s a good thing for a car to be “Like a Rock?”
What gets me is that “Like a Rock” is a depressing song about an old middle-aged fart sitting into the night, staring at the fire and wondering where the 16 years had gone since he was eighteen.
I thought that was sad, oh, around sixteen years ago when the song first came out, and I was about eighteen years old. Now . . . I don’t even like to think about it . . .
Chevy’s ad campaigns seem to be focused on the traditional mythology that “seeing the USA in your Chevrolet” is a part of the American dream ( “By gawd, Dot, I got to hab me one!”) made ever so much more pleasant with a macho American song and presumably a highly marketed beverage and a beautiful woman.
I’m with you on “Like a Rock”, Reilly. Of course, the suits that make the decisions in corporate offices never have a clue what the songs are about. I remember when George Will interpreted Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” as patriotic. They’re about as out of touch with Seger as he was with Springsteen.
I can’t remember which car it advertises, but Smashmouth’s “Walking on the Sun” doesn’t exactly make sense as a product promo, if you listen to the words.
Harley Earl was the guy responsible for those huge, wacky bumper guards on the 1953 Cadillac…the ones that were referred to as “Dagmars,” in honor of the chesty blonde television hostess of “Dagmar’s Canteen.”
I see by the link that Harley Earl died in 1969 . . . Way before air bags and mandatory seatbelts—not to mention the emissions standards! Does Buick have to force Harley’s ghost into current-practices sessions? “Air bags? What kinda pansies are you people anyway? I’m outta here. Is that Goldie Hawn chick still around?”