# Chevrolet, here's an idea. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 30, 2006, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386 "2006-10-30T01:51:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Li\_l\_Pluck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ee59a6/32.png) [@Li\_l\_Pluck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Li_l_Pluck)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/21 "2006-10-30T13:18:53Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] …sucks harder than a Bangkok whore trying to get a coconut through a crazy straw. [/QUOTE] May I pleeeease use this? (I mean, even if I don’t give credit?) 🙂 And yeah, the ad is kinda sucky, but I tend to feel that way about most advertising. ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/22 "2006-10-30T14:06:15Z")
While we’re on the subject, did you know there’s a special all new episode of _Friday Night Lights_ tonight at 9/8 central? OMG! ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/23 "2006-10-30T14:15:00Z")
[QUOTE=brianjedi] Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, who thought carpet-bombing the World Series and the NFL with this craptacular ode to Norman Rockwell’s Middle America was a good idea? [/QUOTE] I watch more commercials during the baseball postseason than during the whole rest of the year (because baseball’s something I don’t want to tape and watch later), and there were a lot of commercials I got sick of pretty quickly after seeing them over and over and over again. This is but one (or two) of them. And darn you to heck for reminding me of it, so that now that song’s going to be running through my head all day. > [@](#): > > And can someone explain why, exactly, Vietnam and Hurricane Katrina are going to make people more likely to buy an Aveo or that renamed-Cavalier POS “Cobalt”? I’m guessing you and I aren’t the target audience for this ad, though. It’s an ad for Chevy **trucks** , and it’s aimed at people who drive pickup trucks, and wear cowboy hats and wave the flag and love motherhood and apple pie and listen to patriotic country songs and sit on their front porches drinking lemonade after putting in a hard day’s work. ---
**Author:** ![BoBettie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@BoBettie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoBettie)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/24 "2006-10-30T14:21:16Z")
I was shreiking about this last night during SNF. WTF is the deal? If they have to show it, do they have to show it EVERY commercial break for an entire quarter? After the third time I muted through all of the commercials because it was making me insane. I’d rather hear: Head on! Apply directly to the forehead! Head on! Apply directly to the forehead! Head on! Apply directly to the forehead! ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/25 "2006-10-30T15:06:42Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Make something that looks interesting, and you’ll get people in the showrooms, but those featureless blobs just aren’t going to attract anybody’s attention. [/QUOTE] Yeh, they need to [add some pizazz.](http://www.diald.com/dialD_Worthy/07_04Jul_DW/GlennMauer/Glenns_XB_03.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/26 "2006-10-30T15:14:48Z")
[Quote=brianjedi] And can someone explain why, exactly, Vietnam and Hurricane Katrina are going to make people more likely to buy an Aveo or that renamed-Cavalier POS “Cobalt”? [/Quote] They’re not. The ad is for Chevy trucks. For the past couple of years, the advertising tag line for Chevys in general is “An American Revolution”. Now what the hell might be revolutionary about Chevrolets is an open question, but it seems pretty clear that the Viet Nam/hippie protester images are supposed to evoke this slogan. Well, then there’s the OTHER open question as to whether generally conservative pickup truck drivers would respond to this sort of thing , but whatever. Regarding the Katrina/WTC stuff, the advert prominently features a bunch of people driving into a site for a barn-raising or some such thing. The idea here, although not exactly carried out with the greatest of clarity, seems to be that any time something happens that might lay another country low, we all pile into our Chevy trucks and hustle on out to rebuild whatever it is that got trashed in some form or other. Oh, yeah, and does anyone notice, in one scene, that JCM is crooning his little tune in front of a rusted, broken down old Chevy pickup? Surely that got to be about the first time a vehicle manufacturer has ever implied that their stuff, you know, eventually _wears out_. And now, having thoroughly deconstructed a 30-second ad spot that everyone (including me) loathes, I’m off to look for a life somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/27 "2006-10-30T16:27:56Z")
I am not a big fan of sentimental patriotism or of trucks or of country music or down-home-Americana or regular-guy-Bubba-lifestyles. I’m not a big fan of Chevrolet or of television commmercials. All that being said … It’s not a terrible song or a particularly bad commercial. Rather run-of-the-mill really. Why all the hate? ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/28 "2006-10-30T17:05:07Z")
Pizazz? I’d say the Camry and Accord are among the most vanilla cars on the road, but they’re also among the most popular in their class, if not the most popular. And air time for their ads seems pretty light. Just make some truly excellent cars, for fuck’s sake. The rest kind of takes care of itself. ---
**Author:** ![Keweenaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Keweenaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keweenaw)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/29 "2006-10-30T18:36:19Z")
An autoweek article on the intent on the promotion. [Striking a Nerve](http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061016/FREE/61016002/1041/TOC01ARCHIVE) Judging by this thread, it looks like they hit the mark they were aiming for. From the article : "If you want to make a statement that rings true with the majority of people, you are going to piss off some people. There are a lot of cynical people out there who don’t react well to this, and a lot of people who will never get behind the wheel of a pickup. “So let them get into their Volvo sedans and complain about this spot that they see as exploitive,” he says. “This is not for them. The biggest risk you can take is to play it safe.” ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/30 "2006-10-30T19:12:29Z")
It’s a sappy, overly jingo-istic ad, but that’s to be expected from a car company. I just wish they’d kill their embarrassingly bad [flying car ad](http://www.leftlanenews.com/2006/09/13/general-motors-launches-flying-car-viral/). Like, WTF does a flying car have to do with an extended warranty? The whole thing looks like it was conceived by a 3 year old. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/31 "2006-10-30T19:32:58Z")
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink] I’m guessing you and I aren’t the target audience for this ad, though. It’s an ad for Chevy **trucks** , and it’s aimed at people who drive pickup trucks, and wear cowboy hats and wave the flag and love motherhood and apple pie and listen to patriotic country songs and sit on their front porches drinking lemonade after putting in a hard day’s work. [/QUOTE] Right. They really don’t care if dudes who weren’t going to buy a Chevy Truck in the 1st place don’t like the ad. Their test market show that their target market \*will \* like the ad. Whether or not this translates to significantly higher sales is another thing entirely. ---
**Author:** ![brianjedi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/32 "2006-10-30T19:58:53Z")
[QUOTE=drachillix] Comon you know you love [Bob Seger](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Seger_%26_The_Silver_Bullet_Band) [/QUOTE] Actually, I do have Bob Seger in the TuneSelect on my XM radio. I blame my parents. Here’s the weird thing: I drove a Chevy truck for 5 years before buying my (used) Malibu. I’m the kind of person they’d be marketing toward: young, likes Chevrolets, has driven a Chevy truck in the past. This commercial makes me want to set fire to the 2007 Silverado. I don’t get the “American Revolution” tagline, unless George Washington actually crossed the Delaware in a Chevy Nomad. Did Thomas Jefferson drive a Bel Air? ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/33 "2006-10-30T20:44:45Z")
[QUOTE=Trunk] It’s an odd commercial. When JCM sings “from the East Coast, to the West Coast”, they show a bunch of crab pots on “east coast” and for “west coast” they show a forest fire. Then, they show Katrina damage. Then, they show the world trade center lights, followed by a shot of some canyon out West. I don’t know what they’re trying to say. And, Rosa Parks? Although, I find something sexy about the woman at the beginning of the commercial in the 50’s bathing suit. [/QUOTE] Why does this remind me of the South Park episode where Alan Jackson was singing, “Where were you when they built a ladder to heaven?” ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/34 "2006-10-30T20:56:01Z")
[QUOTE=Trunk] It’s an odd commercial. When JCM sings “from the East Coast, to the West Coast”, they show a bunch of crab pots on “east coast” and for “west coast” they show a forest fire. Then, they show Katrina damage. Then, they show the world trade center lights, followed by a shot of some canyon out West. I don’t know what they’re trying to say. And, Rosa Parks? [/QUOTE] This is why the song has nothing to do with how crappy the commercial is. By wallowing in bullshit nostalgia, knee-jerk patriotic pandering, and touchy-feely image-whoring of real life news events, this commercial on mute would be horrible in a way that no song could either redeem or further detract from in any significant way. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/35 "2006-10-30T23:28:48Z")
[QUOTE=Li’l Pluck] May I pleeeease use this? (I mean, even if I don’t give credit?) 🙂 [/QUOTE] Share and Enjoy! ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/36 "2006-10-30T23:43:42Z")
[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy] This is why the song has nothing to do with how crappy the commercial is. By wallowing in bullshit nostalgia, knee-jerk patriotic pandering, and touchy-feely image-whoring of real life news events, this commercial on mute would be horrible in a way that no song could either redeem or further detract from in any significant way. [/QUOTE] It’s like the Democrats and Republicans joined forces to create an election campaign for Chevy. ---
**Author:** ![brianjedi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2006, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/37 "2006-10-31T03:14:19Z")
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim] It’s like the Democrats and Republicans joined forces to create an election campaign for Chevy. [/QUOTE] “Osama bin Laden drives a Toyota.” ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2006, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/38 "2006-10-31T04:32:23Z")
[QUOTE=brianjedi] Alternatively, you can make crappy cars and sell a ton of them with good advertising, e.g. Nissan. Or most Mazdas. [/QUOTE] Nissan indeed has a shaky track record - Altimas were shit in the '90s, and I’ve read horrible things about the Murano - but what has Mazda ever done wrong? ---
**Author:** ![brianjedi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2006, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/39 "2006-10-31T04:40:09Z")
[QUOTE=Cisco] Nissan indeed has a shaky track record - Altimas were shit in the '90s, and I’ve read horrible things about the Murano - but what has Mazda ever done wrong? [/QUOTE] They share engineering with Fords (the Ford Fusion is a rebadged Mazda 3-series) and Ford engineering is less than spectacular. I’ve heard complaints from friends who own Mazdas, too, about things breaking. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2006, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386/40 "2006-10-31T06:01:19Z")
[QUOTE=Cisco] Nissan indeed has a shaky track record - Altimas were shit in the '90s, and I’ve read horrible things about the Murano - but what has Mazda ever done wrong? [/QUOTE] The Murano is actually quite nice, and surprisingly rugged, given its unabashed “pretend off-roader” styling and design. My dad has one, and it’s one of very few vehicles left on the northeast side of Grand Cayman during the hurricanes which were still drivable (or even upright) afterward. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chevrolet-heres-an-idea/378386.md?page=3)