Thursday, March 19, 2009

How GM Destroyed the Electric Car - Video

We all know that the electric car (EV1) was created by GM and then discontinued a few years later. There has been much discussion as to why this is, and some "conspiracy theorists" think that GM orchestrated a malevolent ad campaign against their own car to make it look bad so people wouldn't buy it. I thought it would be a good idea to look into this a little further and see if we could tease out the truth. Here is a commercial GM made for the EV1 but which never aired:



Pretty good right? Here is the commercial GM actually aired:



Now, as someone in the advertising industry, I can break down for you in very technical ways which one of these is a good commercial and which one isn't. That being said, I don't think anyone reading this really needs my help there.

One looks futuristic and very similar to other car commercials we have seen. The other has dark music, lightning storms and living appliances scrambling around a creepy house.

One of these is hands down a better commercial then the other -- in fact -- the other is a downright bad commercial. Yet that is the one GM chose to run during the superbowl when those ads where costing literally millions of dollars for a thirty second spot. Conspiracy or stupidity? You be the judge.

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