I agree that the 2 "tool boxes" do not seem the same.

 

When you are the Best Selling vehicle for 30+ years, you don't need to say anything. By speaking of it...then you validate it.

Although the commercial does show what can happen if a toolbox hits at a weird angle and blocks tossed into the bed, but I do NOT know one person who would do such a thing.

It is a good commercial for GM. It does point out the differences between the two products...IMHO.


biz

 

In my area, Chevy is running and abbreviated ad with just the toolbox comparison. It isn't affecting sales much if at all. But this is the thing that 15 year olds sitting in the school parking lot will argue over for an entire lunch break. To me, this ad, and all of Chevrolet's latest ads, are focusing on younger buyers. Precisely those who aren't buying new cars or trucks. Most 20 somethings are buying used and don't really care about the way the car/truck is built or what powers it. They just want shiny paint and a vehicle that starts every time the key is turned.

 

When I was getting my oil changed at the Ford dealer 10 days ago, the Guest Services Manager and I were talking in detail about trucks and SUV's. I was impressed with her knowledge and made sure she knew that she impressed me.

She asked me a great question: How did I feel about the latest GM ads where the Ford bed is destroyed?

My response: I feel that the ads will reach the audience that GM is looking for and I feel that the ads severely question the intelligence of any grown and mature truck buyer.

My question to her: As a sales type person, what are you doing to either inform, educate or deflect these ads? I got this from her. I'm guessing she's still working on that one.

It's a tough commercial to discredit especially when you're trying to sell a $50K truck. I don't envy her new hurdle.

 

I guess we are a bunch of 15 year olds talking about it too! I definitely hear it come up with folks in the showroom. When FTE had the article about Ford calling bear handlers and finding out the aluminum is in fact used on many top end cages I shared that link with the whole dealership.

The GM ads really are easy to defeat in a two way conversation. Given no further thought the commercial is effective. Once you consider the true conditions it becomes a null point. It's just how many people are going around thinking Ford flopped it because they don't care enough to consider, evidently not too many since it's a best selling truck.

 

Remember in the mid 1970's when Chevy downsized their Impala/Caprice lineup? A year or two before Ford downsized. So FORD's ads of the day touted their "road hugging weight" as being a good thing. To try to keep sales up until they got their downsizing program in place.

 

I have a pretty high degree of confidence that if I pushed an empty steel toolbox off my bedside into my bare bed, it would not be pretty, and it would probably puncture it. Likewise I have a pretty high degree of confidence this wouldn't happen in a steel bed. Steel is a more durable material that stands up better to being beat on. I know that from experience and from my degree in engineering.

If you watch the full version, they mention that in some of the many trials, there were some punctures in the Chevy's bed, and it obviously didn't puncture the Ford's bed every time. I'm sure they chose the best examples in their favor for the commercial. To say the tool boxes were different when this was a reality-style commercial where Chevy claims these were real volunteers though, is a little bit farfetched to me.

Would I put my bed to hard use without any kind of protection regardless of the bed's material? No, and neither would most guys. And with proper bed protection, this does become moot, IMO.

Still, I think it's an effective ad. I've always been a Chevy guy, and I've been enjoying Chevy's recent commercials (as well as Ram's), while I feel like Ford's commercials are absent of any real content and don't speak to me at all. But at the end of the day, I looked at all three, and the trucks spoke for themselves. I picked the best truck on the market, and it was the F150.