Ad Wizards

Posted on October 27, 2006 by Tito

From today’s Sports Guy column:

George in Chicago: “What is your problem with the ‘This is Our Country‘ Chevy truck ads? Whoever thought that Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War, Watergate, western wildfires, Hurricane Katrina, and 9/11 should be bunched together to sell a truck is a genius! When Chevy opens a new ad campaign for the Malibu, they should use the same song with a montage of the AIDS crisis, the Rodney King beating, Kurt Cobain’s suicide, the O.J. trial, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine massacre, and the Abu Ghraib prison photos. You’re telling me you wouldn’t want to buy a Malibu after seeing that?”

For those not scoring at home, from a previous column:

I made a joke in a previous column about how John Mellencamp was gunning to replace Seger as the sellout rock artist of his generation, but this has taken on a life of its own.

In fact, I even spent a few minutes on his Web site recently hoping to find SOME explanation, even if it was something like, “Guys, I’m sorry, I’m going through a bad divorce, my wife took everything, it was either do these Chevy ads or declare for bankruptcy.” But here was his actual take on the song, courtesy this weekend of the Detroit Free-Press, which reported that a message on his Web site said: “I wrote this song to tell a story about some of the challenges our country faces and how our beliefs and ideals can help us meet them, a message of hope and tolerance. It’s a song that is all about standing up for the working people who are the backbone of our nation.”

Here’s how that same message reads on his Web site right now:

“About a year ago, I wrote this song to tell a story about some of the challenges our country faces and how our beliefs and ideals can help us meet them. This partnership with Chevy — an American company that is creating jobs and supporting our communities — makes perfect sense for a song that is all about standing up for the working people who are the backbone of our nation.”

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