If Chevy’s ‘Real People’ Commercials were ‘Real Life’
Chevrolet’s ‘Real People’ commercials have been getting the full YouTube parody treatment lately, and this truck ad may be the best yet.
If you own a TV, chances are that you’ve seen Chevy’s ridiculous “Real People” commercials. They’ve been running in all their awkwardness for around two years now, and that’s long enough for people to start mocking them. The YouTube channel Zebra Corner has been using parody to perfectly capture how asinine the adverts are, and this take on the Chevy truck commercial really hits the nail on the head. If the Chevy-truck-disguised-as-a-Ford truck opening wasn’t absurd enough, Zebra Corner are happy to point out the other flaws.
These adverts may be annoying, but they seem to work on the gullible masses. They are effective because they plug into both the reality TV and the social media zeitgeist. It’s easy to be skeptical of just how “real” these people are though. Particularly when people have spotted actors in the adverts.
However, it does look like Chevy actually uses real people. One of them has even stepped forward to give an interview for AV Club. That person does sincerely believe the others were real people as well. What’s interesting is how he describes the process to get the answers Chevrolet can use:
“The way they set up these questions, it was hard to get someone to say, ‘Yeah, I really don’t drive a Chevy. I drive a Toyota, and I’ve never had a problem.’
“They were asking us for all these one-word responses. No one’s going to say, ‘What’s the first word you think of when you hear the word “Chevrolet?”’ and have someone reply, “bullshit.” It’s not going to happen. We’re paid to be there, and there are all these cameras and whatever.”
By paying people for their time and guiding them to a showy reveal, Chevy is treading a very fine line. Add that tactical approach to some smart editing to create the narrative, and it’s clever and effective advertising. But none of these lame tricks diminishes this notion: Chevy sucks.
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