I hadn’t blogged about the new campaign of Chevy yet, in which they ask users to compile their own ads and put it up on their website. (There is a lot of interesting stuff out there in the „consumer generated media“ space and I am currently just collecting everything on delicious.)
Adjab and Adpulp now mention something that will always happen when you start a campaign like that and don’t check the ads before they go live on the website: There are a couple of spots that contain messages that Chevy is, most likely, not in favour of. These kind of spots will always appear in all sorts of places – even more so in the future, now that we have sites like YouTube and mobile phones that can film videos. But these happen to be part of the Chevy challenge, and they’re live on their website.
But there is one spot that could pose a problem to Chevy. Not only regarding their image, but also legally:
Like Snow? Beautiful landscapes? Be sure to take it all in now because…
Tomorrow this asshole’s SUV will change the world
Global warming isn’t a pretty SUV ad
It’s a frightening reality
ExxposeExxon.org
Tahoe� An American Revolution (source)
Now this one spot I am sure they’ll delete. I don’t think they want to get into trouble with Exxon. And they can without loosing their face, because in the rules it says:
or which might subject Sponsors or its licensees to unfavorable regulatory action, violate any law, infringe the rights of any person, or subject Sponsors or its Licensees to liability for any reason.
I also think it’s OK. It’s about Chevy and it’s target group. It’s not about any other brands.
Should they, however, pull the other ads that are negative about Chevy or SUVs, it will most likely have a negative PR effect on them. If they let people upload anything without prior control, they should stick to it.
I agree with Steve Hall: let’s hope the reason they left the videos online is their sense for the rules of the new media – and not just the fact that this happened over a weekend.
Wo ich sonst so bin...