Ads: Chevy Return Policy

10.08.09 - chris
Tags: advertising, bad commercial, chevy

I’ll admit a certain amount of bias against the US car companies that took bailout money.  I’m not going to debate the logic behind the decisions, but the reason for the bias is that I thought that they ignored their own best interest for years (decades?) in pursuit of profits with unsustainable business practices.

So, anyway, they’ve got their bailouts, but now they are back to pitching cars.  Fine, but at least don’t put out terrible, pathetic ads on TV.

The latest in their series of ads features a guy that likes to return things.  He saves receipts and doesn’t buy something he can’t return.  So, of course, he buys a Chevy.  They talk about their 60-day return policy, and then the guy says, not all that convincingly I’d say, that he’s thrilled with his purchase and won’t be returning it.

The idea of a great return policy these days is a strong one [Hyundai has a great policy for if you lose your job or your income drops].  The problem is how Chevy is marketing it.  I’m watching the commercial thinking, yeah I can see why you’d want to return a Chevy, too.  And when the guy says, “But I won’t take advantage of it, ’cause I’m thrilled”, I don’t really believe him.

Chevy made the mistake when they chose the way to present their program (which is basically everything about the commercial).  They focused on a desire to return a car, stressing that you might have a desire to return the car and that they would understand that.  They understood the desire to get rid of your freshly purchased Chevrolet so well that they made a policy around it.

When you are pitching a satisfaction-based return policy, your first goal has to be to deflect attention away from the desire to return the object in the first place.  You show nothing but satisfied people talking about how much they love the item, not how much they like to return things.

I think that ad could work so much better if you show multiple people that love the car. Over and over you show them talking about what they love about it.  In your last ten seconds you pose the question, “What if we let you return it within 60 days?”.  Give it a beat, and then “No way!” “You can’t have my car” “Over my dead body”, and on and on.  You close with “Announcing a return policy you won’t want ever want to use”.  You get to brag about your car, show very satisfied customers and you introduce the policy after you’ve already convinced people that the car is great, couched in terms that don’t make your viewers believe that they’ll want to use it.

Chevy might really be working at a turnaround, but they are going to need stronger marketing and advertising than they are currently producing.

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