Episode 68 - Chevrolet Ad Reviewed by The Diversity Standards Collective, Social Chain Agency and Beiersdorf UK
Our latest ad chosen by our partners Contagious is an all-American affair from Chevrolet, combining apple pie, hot dogs and baseball.
Does this celebration of Americana make any sense or is it as confusing as the choice of a cooking show on a car? Is it a lesson in great personal brand partnership for its main star, and does it just wash over the head of an audience that doesn’t know the context?
Watch the video to find out what our guests Lucy McKillop (Client Experience Director at The Diversity Standards Collective), Pollyanna Ward (Head of Paid Social at Social Chain Agency) and Sophie Rock (PR and Sustainability Manager at Beiersdorf UK) thought about it.
Transcription
The following is an automated transcript of the file, which is not 100% accurate but will give you a good idea of what was discussed.
Tom Ollerton 0:06
Hello and welcome to Advertisers Watching Ads. My name is Tom Ollerton, I'm the founder of Automated Creative, and this is a weekly show where brands watch other brands' ads and discuss what's good and bad about them. The ad was chosen by the guys at contagious.com, so thanks for continuing to partner with us, guys.
Go and check those guys out after the show. So, let's move on to meet this week's guests.
Lucy McKillop 0:30
Hi, I'm Lucy McKillop. My job title is the Client Experience Director at The Diversity Standards Collective.
Pollyanna Ward 0:38
Hi, I'm Pollyanna Ward. I'm the Head of Paid Social at Social Change Agency.
Sophie Rock 0:43
Hi, I'm Sophie Rock, and I'm the PR and Sustainability Manager at Beiersdorf UK.
Tom Ollerton 0:49
Thanks so much for joining us today, guys. Let's see this week's ad.
Ad
Tom Ollerton 1:45
Pollyanna... What do you make of that when you first saw it?
Pollyanna Ward 1:48
Yeah, it just kind of felt a bit really basic. I was kind of expecting that to be... You know, when he got to the end and it was like, "Oh, it's a Chevrolet ad." I just thought... I don't know, was he going to grill it in the car? Was he going to drive away? Like, what was? There was no exciting punch line. It felt like the punch line was so reliant on the remixed jingle from the ad from years ago. So yeah, it just felt a bit bland. So, I'm going to be the contrarian here.
Lucy McKillop 2:14
When I first watched it, it gave me more questions than answers, I have to say. Is it an ad? Was one of my first questions. And then I guess I had to also Google, who Guy Fieri is. Probably sort of shines a light on me, not really knowing very much about American culture. But once I did this idea of the kind of quintessentially or kind of classically American vibe that Chevrolet is, baseball is, and Guy Fieri is... It kind of made sense but it took digging into it and using my kind of brand partnership brain to go, "Okay, yeah, actually, this is probably a lesson in great personal brand partnership rather than great kind of, you know, brand advertising."
Sophie Rock 3:04
I thought it's weird. I thought, I found it really strange, like.... And also, I think the food just put me off. It looked disgusting. But I mean, I love a hot dog and I love apple pie. I'm just not sure I'd want to cook them together. Yeah. Just didn't really know what it was until I googled it and then kind of made a bit more sense. So I think strategically, they were clearly trying to make a nod to this, this kind of Americana that they were trying to celebrate. This was all based around this kind of celebratory baseball game, randomly based on the Kevin Costner film, "Field of Dreams." That was some big game happening in the States that was kind of a groundbreaking game in Iowa that the stadium had been built for. This hotdog recipe was the official snack of the game, basically. And I guess because of the, the link that Chevrolet had to baseball, I think they were just trying to basically tap into that through this partnership. I think the bits of the idea, actually, I think, was quite clever in terms of trying to sort of, you know, build this game up and try and get a link for Chevrolet into kind of celebrating this nostalgic Americana thing.
But I guess unless you are massively following that game or baseball and knowing what that context was, it kind of washes over you if you just watch that ad out of context, for me.
Lucy McKillop 4:42
If I'm honest, like if it's just online content, it feels like it doesn't have the padding around it to kind of give you like to give you the "why." You can see what and you can kind of piece together the, "OK, yeah, this makes sense." But... Why?
Tom Ollerton 5:00
Okay, so Pollyanna, what would have made this better? You're the creative director here. And assuming that the spot was in the right place on the right channel, at the right time for the right audience, what would you have done differently?
Pollyanna Ward 5:11
I guess in the most obvious way, possible was they used Instagram text overlays on YouTube so that already, was a no go in my area. But taking the creative as it is, let's say it was in the right place, the right time and everything else. I think for me, it's more around the amplification side of things. And because I didn't actually see it as coming back to the Americana roots, I saw it quite similar to the Old Spice campaign, where it was trying to tap into nostalgia in a way to modernize the brand. So that jingle, they've then remixed it. But then what was interesting was it was kind of like a drop in the ocean because it had... Got notes here.
Like they had three videos on Instagram, but with no paid amplification and it only... They did a call out on TikTok on their channel going, you know, do it, you add to their song or whatever, and it got 18 videos and you just think, how much did they pay for Guy Fieri? And all they got was 18 videos.
Lucy McKillop 6:05
Well, to add to that, I looked on Google trends and it maxed out.
Tom Ollerton 6:10
Woah, Lucy, what homework. That is, that is very impressive.
Lucy McKillop 6:16
And it only got 100 hits.
Sophie Rock 6:18
I think maybe it was just too, too much. It was too, too random without you knowing all of that background.
Lucy McKillop 6:25
I wonder if you flip it and you look at it from the perspective of is this a good brand partnership for Guy Fieri? Right? So instead of looking at it from the Chevrolet perspective, you go, "OK, what is, what's Guy Fieri's brand, what does he like doing, what does he represent, what's his, who's his audience?" Maybe that's how it works. But again, why? Like, why? And what are, all the questions that we've addressed? Like, you know, what do we want Guy Fieri's audience to do? Yeah, probably they're more likely to go and make it. Does that then make them more likely to have an affinity towards buying a Chevrolet? Or go to the baseball match? There's just so many things that I think potentially are hurdles.
Pollyanna Ward 7:11
But even like the PR drops that they did, it was oven mitts and cooking equipment. I was like, "Where's the car key fob?” But I don't know, like the bum seat warmer for winter. I didn't know there was just nothing to do with...
Lucy McKillop 7:25
A hotdog holder. Water holder in your car. Yeah. Car. Come on, guys.
Pollyanna Ward 7:33
We wouldn't have gone into the range of car cooking merch. It was an interesting thought that the actual imagery itself. I don't know whether it was deliberately designed to be a bit, I don't know, cheeky.
Tom Ollerton 7:45
Isn't this at least different? Isn't this going to make them... Put them in a slightly different place? I mean, is this an actually an innovative ad?
Sophie Rock 7:53
I suppose it depends on what their objective is as well. I don't know much about Chevrolet and what their position is and if they're doing badly or not. But...
Pollyanna Ward 8:01
I have written like, reinvigorate some brand love with a question mark.
Sophie Rock 8:05
It could be. It could be what they were trying to do. Yeah.
Lucy McKillop 8:09
I think you could do it better. If your sweet spot is this kind of cooking piece that we've, we're reviewing like... Could you set it in a, in a more kind of nostalgic background? Could you have a kind of series of nostalgic replays of the old ads? Could you work it into a wider campaign that makes sense and handles it better?
Pollyanna Ward 8:37
I think as well just whether it's innovation or just sort of any kind of advertising, something that, it doesn't apply to every single brief, but it's something that I'm always really interested in is, challenge that... Coming from the in-house perspective, I used to challenge briefs, is always that the brand should be the catalyst for said event to happen. I mean, I imagine if I take the Old Spice example, it's like Old Spice is the catalyst to your man smelling great or like Nivea is the catalyst for your skin being super soft and being a great mom. You know, I just don't look at the cata... It just feels like there was this really lovely jingle in the seventies, and maybe it could, it didn't need to change. It could have just existed as that jingle because it is just a little bit like it's hilarious when you watch the ad back because, yeah.
Tom Ollerton 9:28
So unfortunately, we are at the end of the show. Gonna count to three and you are going to vote for how good you think this ad is on a scale of one to five. So one, two, three...
A two, a one, and a two. Lucy, Pollyanna, Sophie. Thank you so much.
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