as if the don mclean association wasn't enough
Jesus fucking christ. Argh. Charles and I are watching the All-Star game right now. The broadcast comes back from break, and the announcers tell us (paraphrasing) "a banner's just been unfurled in the outfield" -- and indeed, a large vertical stripe of fabric, seemingly hand-painted, has been draped over a billboard suspended above the outfield, and it's got the letters HHRYA.com painted on it -- "I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, but clearly someone went to a lot of trouble to do it."
Hmm. Some sort of guerilla website promotion at the All-Star game? Intriguing. It's a little weird that the FOX broadcast would give it exposure, but baseball games, even the All-Star game, consist of an awful lot of airtime to fill with chatter. The HHRYA website is slammed, of course, and the Coral cache won't load, but it gets far enough that I can see it's trying to get content from textamerica.com. Somebody's moblog? Very interesting.
Well, it's been a few more minutes, and now I can load the site. And you know what? It's a fucking viral marketing campaign for a fucking Chevy. Rewound the Tivo -- hey, whaddayaknow! The banner was draped over a Corvette ad. And the greenscreened batter's box ad for that at-bat was a Chevy billboard. Yeah Joe Buck, I bet you had NO FUCKING IDEA what was going on with that banner. Must be some kind of authentic piece of underground culture asserting itself upon Major League Baseball! Yup, that's the only explanation. Look at those jagged letters! Look at the amateurish fabric! Yes, somebody is really desperate to share their love of an UPCOMING GODDAMN AUTOMOBILE. And they want you to upload your pictures and music to their site! Or something! And become part of the HHR community! WOW! Are tattoos available?
Man oh man, Chevrolet. I already disliked you for the design abomination that is and has been the Corvette. But now I outright hate you. Fuck you, Chevy. Don't try to relate to me, don't demand my attention, and most of all don't try to fool me. Stay out of my goddamn culture. You make cars. You are not a community, you are not an aesthetic, you are not a way of life, and now you are not a brand I would ever consider purchasing.
Comments
ha ha ha ha ha ha.
awesome.
And yet, you fell for the guerilla marketing in so far as you surfed to their site. How many millions went with you...?
Well yeah... That's why I'm pissed off. They fooled me into wasting my time searching for an ad. I'm not saying it's not an effective strategy, I'm just saying it's an evil one. Can you imagine if all advertising came in this sort of stealth mode? What space would that leave the lingering shreds of our noncommercial culture?
I suppose you can take heart in the fact that your hitting their website isn't going to sell any cars. American auto companies are doing a lot of strange things these days that aren't selling any cars.
Jeff's right. Cars aren't moving off the lots. I'm personally waiting for a decent "series" hybrid that can also be charged off the grid rather than using gasoline. But I think most folks aren't buying because they're holding off waiting to see if high oil is here to stay before they decide on an SUV or an energy efficient car.
Meanwhile, the auto parts industry is thriving.
don't want to be an early adopter, scott?
Uh...no. I'm waiting for, er, you know mass produced versions with warranties, etc... And I need the Democrats and Republicans to get off their ass and pass an energy bill with an increased tax write off. But I admire the efforts of Calcars.
And so the backlash against Fox and Chevy begins
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/13/foxsports_ruse_web/
Tom-
You kinda sound like a grown-up version of the kid in "A Christmas Story" who finally gets his Little Orphan Annie Secret Decoder ring, then with great anticipation, decodes the top-secret message they broadcast at the end of the show:
"D-R-I-N-K M-O-R-E O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E"
I guess there's a parallel, but so far as I know Little Orphan Annie isn't real, whereas occasional guerilla protest or promotional acts are.
Tom, I think johnboy's larger point is that they could have been doing something interesting or exciting (to an 8-year-old), but the whole thing was a convoluted hook to give you an ad, just like in this situation.
The really wretched thing is that as advertisers realize that more people are becoming (like me) completely desensitsed to traditional advertising, they are forced to be more invasive and generally trickier just to get your attention in the first place. I figure it'll be another decade till they realize that yes, there is such a thing as bad publicity. When you're in a market with competition, you don't want to be *so* off-putting that I actually remember your name for the sheer sake of avoiding you like the plague. Any of you who live in the DC/MD area may know what I mean when I say I wouldn't go to an Antwerpen dealership even if they gave the cars away, just to make a point. I will never, ever consider insurance from Gebco (the football player with the Flygirl rejects dancing; looks to have been shot on a Hi-8). You get the idea.
What I guess I'm saying is, they may pick up on it eventually, but you and me trying to make this point is like an ant trying to get an elephant's attention by throwing grains of sand at it. With enough of us, they may notice, but it will surely take a while.
James: Bingo. Plus, of course, if it appeared in that film ~15 years ago, recounting a tale older still, then this is not a new phenomenon - which, by the way, doesn't make it any less annoying. Why advertisers want to piss off their (potential) consumers, I'll never know.
On the other hand, there's a radio station around here now that makes me feel creeped out because they almost never play a song I hate - I feel like i've been correctly pegged into a demographic. Old Navy did that to me the first time I walked in there (pushing a stroller).
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