Chevys handle nicely through wedding cake

Cake is a big thing in auto ads lately. Last year, Fallon London baked up that sedan-shaped cake for Skoda. And now we have this McCann Argentina spot in which a pair of twentysomethings drive their Chevy Spark through a giant wedding cake. The meaning of the stunt is unclear, but it probably has something to do with rebellion. The tagline is, "Life has just begun."

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Published on November 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (5)
Filed under Chevrolet, McCann Erickson, Nudd, South America

Chevy spots offer worst-in-class pandering

We've written about the Chevy Traverse campaign before, when they were taking flak for their controversial idea of the perfect man. Still, Chevy seems committed to its strange efforts at pandering to women. Its latest spot from Campbell-Ewald takes a turn for the surreal when, for no apparent reason, it starts raining shoes. Our protagonist is lucky to have best-in-class cargo room, and she's scores a huge haul of disgusting, probably used heels. That's right: It doesn't rain Blahniks. It rains a huge array of oddly colored, subjectively sized, random shoes. We're left to wonder things like: Why doesn't she get brained by any of those shoes? If hail can dent cars, why can't a four-pound falling clog? And what kind of woman actually dreams of raining shoes: a 6-year-old who just read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs? I'm not going to tell Chevy it's embracing a horrible stereotype. Some women adore shoes. But they want to see them in posh stores on little pedestals, or possibly on sale, not falling from the sky like the local Payless just got hit by a suicide bomber.

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

Published on September 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (4)
Filed under Automotive, Campbell-Ewald, Chevrolet, Cullers

Not a lot of love for Chevy's 'perfect man'

People get pretty fired up about a topless guy doing housework. Chevrolet's ad for the 2009 Traverse shows a "perfect man" ironing his mate's dress while planning their six-month anniversary dinner. I found it pretty vanilla, but the spot seems to have raised hackles on both sides of the gender divide. MSNBC's Allison Linn says it's "tacky, nonsensical and weirdly evocative of pornography." Todd at the Iced Tea & Sarcasm blog thinks it's a blatant ripoff of the (quite safe for work) book Porn for Women. And a commenter named Lunchbox420 on the unofficial Opie and Anthony forums believes the "Chevrolet Traverse Homo Commercial" is just another example of Madison Avenue "emasculating the American white man." Maybe Chevy should have avoided controversy altogether by showing the perfect man as a dancing robotic alcohol dispenser.

—Posted by David Griner

Published on September 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Filed under Automotive, Chevrolet, Controversy, Griner, TV