Hey remember the Volt dance? Sure you do. You might wish you didn't. But if you saw it, we're guessing it was seared onto your noodle. Remember the Solid-Gold style dancing-ladies and -- why not -- a break dancer? Remember its soundtrack -- that ear-worm of a jingle known as the Volt song (although known casually to us as "Oh For The Love Of God, Get The Hell Out My Head!").
The lameness of the presentation that Chevrolet marketing put on during the public days of the Los Angeles Auto Show now has General Motors PR trying to distance itself from the thing. In fact, the head GM PR his-ownself, Chris Preuss, has tweeted (yes, tweeted), "CIA now using Volt dance video to crack terrorists." That's funny. Not as funny as the dance, but funny.
The performance along with the song are no sneaky viral marketing ploy by GM. No, indeed, this silliness was commissioned by the earnest marketing staff within GM and written by folks at Chevrolet's long-time advertising firm, Campbell-Ewald. And, no, it was not apparently created with any sense of irony.
The whole fracas amounts to, well, not much and pales in comparison to some of the choicest PR oddities, such as the 2000 Detroit Auto Show Pontiac Aztek "mosh pit" (pictured below). Or the time at a Daewoo press conference where thousands of live lobsters released on stage began clawing at the journalists in the front row who were too infirm or drunk to escape. Oh no, wait: that was a dream. Sadly, the Aztek wasn't.
inlinesix says:
01:55 PM, 12/16/09
Its bad when marketing people didn't realize it was crap before making it. Its time to drop the disconnected advertising folks. The Solid Gold style is a great way to appeal to the young buyers of 2010!
roadburner says:
07:11 AM, 12/17/09
I love it when a plan comes together.
Blithering idiocy, thy name is Gubmint Motors...
bimmerjay says:
08:06 AM, 12/17/09
GM never ceases to amaze me. I had to stop that hot mess halfway through. How embarrassingly stupid.
roadburner says:
08:26 AM, 12/17/09
bimmerjay,
I love Peter M. De Lorezo's review over on autoextremist.com; here's an excerpt:
"Whatever the concept was - oh never mind, there was no concept, and when you add in the frighteningly bad choreography and stupid music, wow - it ends up being an impressively moronic cocktail of Not Good. The "Chevy Volt Dance" is as bad as it gets, as a matter of fact it's an atrocity that will live long after its "been there, saw that" date, careening around the Internet in this day and age of instant video notoriety as a haunting reminder to one and all that these bozos don't have even a shred of a clue."