Homeless People Could Live In A Car For A Week Too
There's a law somewhere that says two makes a trend and with Chevy joining Nissan in the "our car is so awesome you could live in it" thing, we officially have a trend. As you know, some dude is living in a Nissan and making a "film" about it. Opinions as to how and when and ad somehow became a film aside, the series of "films" is supposed to endear us to the vehicle and the glory of its comfort.
Now, Chevy, with its Livin' Large in Aveo, is following eight college student teams across the country for a week with webcams and blog entries. Everyone gets to vote on which team lives the "largest." Wow. Cool. Yea, road trips are fun and we've had our share back in the day when every friggin' move you made wasn't commercialized.
Today, Adrants reader Daniel Modell, after snapping a shot of a billboard promoting the Nissan promotion, brings up a good point writing, "I have actually known people in my life who at one time or another have lived out of cars. I imagine it's not exactly a pleasant experience. And if I had to live in a car, a brand new subcompact import probably would not be my first choice." We wonder what unfortunate homeless people think when they peer up at this board question why a brand would waste so much money on stunts like this when they same money could be put to better use. Oh, yes, we can't all solve the homeless' problems and not all of them, just like non-homeless people, have a super-dedicated work ethic but with all these peple being paid to live in cars, it makes some wonder.
Comments
When Chevy gets in on something it's officially dead and buried in the ground already.
Big corporate America has not realised how uncool is to try to be cool.
these "campaigns" are almost as pathetic as the college road trip butt-darts going door to door asking people how they like their verizon DSL. i did not watch chevy's attempt at this genre but i have noticed that those nissan commercials are especially pathetic. any ad that starts with a guy "showering" in someone's yard using a lawn sprinkler should be considered a terrible idea.
I admit that when I first heard of the Nissan campaign and saw the guy, I liked it. I expected a good dose of quirkiness and consumer-smarts to give the brand an interesting personality. Wrong. The TV spots are more about this guy's antics than the car, and I find myself wondering whether he's mentally ill or not. Another case of a campaign collapsing under the weight of its own manufactured eccentricity.
Well, it actually all started here: http://www.teamfaultline.com/indexbfp.html
I'm a student at AICASF and competed in the Toyota Yaris Debut Challenge this past April. We had a series of video vignettes that we posted online that detailed Davie, a character that lived in his Yaris and showed viewers the perks and quirks of living in the car.
Oddly enough, none of the agencies that worked on the Nissan Sentra campaign will discuss their innovative idea with us. Sometimes it's just too much of a coincidence to be just that.
I wish they'd have made it a little less obvious that they were casting a Napoleon Dynamite-esque character.
I do like the car wash segment, however.