Sports and advertising: Is it your country?
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I'm not going to sit here and pretend this article is going to reach a new and unfounded conclusion: I am sick of Chevrolet and I'm sick of it being my country. I'm a sports fan, I catch about 30 hours of sports a week or so, I'd say. Over the past year or so, I'd guesstimate that I was subjected to Mr. Mellencamp and his cattle-rustling friends at least 8,000 times.
So, is this ever going to stop? Not likely. Marketing experts continue to tell us that it doesn't matter how much we hate it, it's only that we remember it. Chevrolet spokesman Terry Rhadigan, in a recent issue of Newsweek, said that "By any measure...this campaign has been a success." He also implied that he was aware of the negative buzz, but there were no plans to scale back the ad campaign at all. That's right, America: it will continue to be our country.
This immediately elicits two reactions from me: one logical, and one emotional.
Logically, I'm dumbfounded by their refusal to scale back the campaign. I realize that they've cut out the truly horrendous parts of the commercial (for instance, Martin Luther King no longer appears), but they've continued to market it in a way that, to me, seems like they're just aiming at the South. Cattle, jeans, farms, barns, that portion of the stupid song they use that can even come off as slightly xenophobic. If it's not appealing to everyone, then why does it have to be shown so much? This isn't just a Chevrolet thing--take FrankTV for instance. Ad executives need to realize that there is a big section of sports fans that watch 9 hours of NFL on Sundays, or who will watch 9 hours of playoff baseball in a day...if you stagger your placement to where they are seeing 30-40 ads for your product per day, it's called "oversaturation". There is a way to be a big advertiser for something without making me feel like I can't go 20 minutes without seeing an ad. Yes, the games are long. But if they're so long, why not get more different ads in? Why shove something down the audience's throat?
Emotionally, I'm at the point where I am just no longer going to consider buying my next vehicle from Chevrolet. I'm 22, I'm likely to buy a new car sometime in the near future, and I can tell you that with the way their advertisement has been shoved in my face, I will not even consider a Chevy. Chevy could have the most futuristic, gas-efficient, sleekest car on the market, with the best price possible, and I would not even give a second thought to it. I'm sick of hearing about them, and I'm normally super logical about picking the things I buy--I will never touch a Chevy. Now I can't have the same kind of influence on FrankTV, all I can do is not watch that--trust me, I won't be watching it. I'm curious as to how other sports fans feel about this, which is why I'm posing it here.
Has Chevy's advertising affected you to the point where you feel less-inclined to buy from them?
