GM/CHEVROLET: Everybody Loves a Chevy, Car Wash Dudes, Robot, Chevy is America’s Favorite

JEFF GOODBY: Dumb friends have liked the nude car washing spot. Not me.

GARY KOEPKE: The Chevy ad of people singing songs about Chevy’s while driving around in them was well executed and made me feel good about Chevy. Liked it.

MARIAN SALZMAN: If Coke is a high this game, I’m on Chevrolet blur—too many different concepts, images, and sounds, while I try to figure out what’s for sale. The brand? A specific model? A Chevy mindset? If there is a comeback embedded in the message, I’m too busy thinking about the rain in Miami to find it.

JIM FERGUSON: The “make your own” commercials were a disappointment. Frito Lay and Chevy should leave it to the pros next year. ... A couple of the guys at the party really hated the Chevy spot with the robot and cheered when it “jumped” off the bridge. But, then again, they are also missing fingers from farm accidents, and hate anything that resembles farm implements.

STEPHEN VOLTZ & FRITZ GROBE: The Chevy music montage lost us very quickly. It didn’t go anywhere—just too random.

JOSEPH JAFFE: Still not sure why both CGC spots were aired back to back, but irrespective the relative winner was Doritos and loser was Chevy. Both really paid lip service to the consumer component, which wasn’t really pure consumer created content anyway. Ultimately, this was all about pre-game buzz and that’s about it.

BARBARA LIPPERT: The Chevy spot created by the student, with men in the streets taking off their shirts and desperately stroking the HHR is funny. I watched the Project Greenlight-like documenting of every moment in the contest, and the girl who created it is the youngest, shyest college kid I’ve ever seen. They even recorded her at the big opening dinner ordering a Shirley Temple. It’s like the librarian who finally lets down her hair....

CHRIS WALL: Chevrolet. Nostalgia in song. You do realize this commercial cost eight or ten million dollars in rights? Maybe more. Maybe a lot more? A waste of money and music. Join the Revolution. What is even remotely revolutionary about any of the Chevy’s in this commercial? The problem with nostalgia of this sort is that it harkens back to when you were great but serves to remind everyone that you haven’t been in a long, long time. ... Old men and skinny boys take off their clothes at a traffic light. Hump the Red Chevy. Ick. ... A sweet but ineffective robot gets fired from the GM assembly line and his robot existence goes down hill before he commits suicide...but it’s only a dream. I thought it was pretty well executed but they will get letters.

JASON MARKS: Chevrolet: This sing-a-long has a sense of humor, crosses demos. Not great or groundbreaking, but better than Ford. As for the GM "Robot" spot, somewhere between the IKEA Lamp and the Maytag repairman GM took a big, fun concept and executed it flawlessly—turning a page on the humorless, beauty-shot-before-big-idea car commercial template. I love robots, and robot dreams are unparalleled high humor. Big win.

SETH GODIN: I quit. After watching GM run a 2 million dollar commercial that consists of a robot getting fired, walking the streets and then committing suicide, I’m so confused, so clueless and yes, so ashamed to be even peripherally involved in this line of work, I have no choice but to quit. If your company was breaking records (in losing money) and was so adversely affecting the lives of thousands, why on earth would you run this ad? I give up.

February 5, 2007 | Permalink