Chevy Gets the Picture Not!

Chevy gets the Web, crows its agency to the New York Times. My friend and esteemed colleague Steve Hall at adrants, agrees Don't eat the victory pie so fast Chevy. You're still clueless.

A spokeswoman for Chevrolet, Melisa Tezanos, said the company did not plan to shut down the thousands of anti-S.U.V. ads that have been consumer-created in the Chevy Apprentice make-your-own-ad contest:

"We anticipated that there would be critical submissions," Ms. Tezanos said. "You do turn over your brand to the public, and we knew that we were going to get some bad with the good. But it's part of playing in this space."

What's your plan for responding to the negative ads? A company that gets it would have one. And they'd be announcing it now instead of talking about how they get the web. Posted by B.L. Ochman

Actually, this morning (likely after your blog post), GM did address the Apprentice ads on its FastLane blog (fastlane.gmblogs.com).

So, it looks like Chevy "gets it" more than some will give it credit for.
Mike

Here's the comment I added to Ed Peper's post. Let's see if they run it:

Ed: Defending the Tahoe after the fact is not exactly an indication of awareness.

And what will GM do to show that you are listening to the many people who created anti-SUV ads?
B.L.

I would hope the comment would come through. I've seen some critical things on the fastlane blog.

They can listen, but GM -- nor any other company with critics -- has to heed them. It's all about a judgment if the critics' suggestions (if they offer any) are sought by enough people in the market to make the changes feasible in terms of production costs and if enough products can be sold.
Mike

Unfortunately, Chevy is taking down some of the ads. They seem to be taking down those that are generating the most traffic. You can find some links to taken down ads here.

It's like Dinosaures quaking at the sight of the end of their world. They're touching, clueless and aboslutely out of touch.

GM, please wake up and make small performance cars, user friendly, gas VERY efficient and drop the whole I-drive-with-my-living-room-entertainement-and-kitchen-car -look. SUV are so... so... yawn, boring.