What did you all think of the GM TV ad with the kid dreaming about driving the Corvette? It was on quite a few times during the Olympics. I thought it was a neat ad - a little different from the rest. I can't afford a 'Vette right now so I'm still looking at it from the eyes of the kid in the commercial even though I'm about 20 years older than he is! And with gas at $2.09/gal here even at Costco I dread the thought of filling up more often than I would need to fill my VW Jetta! But man, 8-cylinders sound sooo nice compared to 4... Heck even 6 sounds better than 4.
Unfortunately, this commercial may have been pulled - in the name of doing it "for the children."
GM pulls Corvette TV ad featuring underage driver
- Los Angeles Times
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Fast and sleek, the Chevy Corvette is the sports car of many a schoolboy's dreams.
And, for General Motors Corp., a PR nightmare.
The automaker late Tuesday yanked a prime-time television commercial for the 2005 Corvette after vehement protests from consumer and safety groups.
The spot, aired during Olympic broadcasts, depicted the dream of a boy clearly too young to have a driver's license taking the 350-horsepower car airborne -- after driving it wildly through city streets and spiraling it through a large drainpipe -- as the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" played in the background.
"This ad is certainly among the most dangerous, anti-safety messages to be aired on national television in recent years," the groups wrote in a letter to GM.
"It is doubtful," they wrote, "that General Motors would condone the beer industry showing a 'dream sequence' of 10-year-old children having an after- school 'kegger.' "
The groups that signed the letter included Consumers Union, Public Citizen and the Consumer Federation of America.
The ad was directed by British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, husband of pop singer Madonna.
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