Harrison Ford Chevy
Wouldn’t that be a fun idea for a Chevy commercial, in the mold of that Suzy ChapStick ad campaign? (Suzy Chaffee, an Olympic skier, did an ad campaign in the 1970s where she said she was changing her name to “Suzy ChapStick”.) If Chevy really wants to ramp up its war of words with Ford, and they seem to want to (especially after that Mayan apocalypse Super Bowl spot that cheapened itself and diluted its message by specifically using a great, high concept ad as an opportunity to take a cheap swipe at Ford alone), then what better way to do it than to hire Harrison Ford to do an ad for them where he says he loves Chevys so much, and he deplores Fords so much, that he’s changing his name from Harrison Ford to Harrison Chevy. Here’s how it could work:
The spot begins with Harrison Ford (in the same hat and outfit he wore in American Graffiti) driving that great 1955 Chevy from American Graffiti down a California boulevard. At a stop light, Harrison Ford says: “You may remember that I was in a movie called American Graffiti. Well, in that movie, they had me driving this ’55 Chevy and losing to a ’32 Ford Deuce Coupe. A Chevy losing to a Ford? Yeah, right! Well, in real life, that “Ford” had a Chevy engine in it, and had it not been a fictional story, this car right here would have stomped that Ford into the dirt anyway! If they were going to have me lose that race, they should have put me in a Ford; after all, my name is Harrison Ford! But to be honest, they would have had to let this Chevy win, and I’m so ashamed to be associated with Fords that I’m changing my name to Harrison Chevy! So the next time you see me, just say: ‘Hey there, Chevy!’ And I’ll say hello to you. But don’t refer to me by that other car’s name again: I’ve had it with them! Yes, Chevy makes great cars, but they’re really much more than that. They’re a part of who we are! That’s why Chevy runs deep!” (I’m using their ad slogan here.) And then, we cut to an exterior shot of the car, the light turns green, and Harrison Ford, um, that is, uh, Harrison Chevy, peels out from the light burning rubber all the way. A police car sees this and starts out after him, and then we cut back into Harrison’s Chevy, and he looks at the camera and says: “Police cars: piece of sh*t Fords!” And then he stomps on the gas pedal and leaves the cops in the dust. We cut inside the police car, and the policemen in the police car say to each other: (Policeman 1): “Hey, he just left us in the dust!” (Policeman 2): “Forget it Earl, that’s a Chevy. You can’t catch a car like that in a Ford.”
Wouldn’t that be fun?
(BTW: I am not bashing Ford. I’m simply taking this idea of Chevy attacking Ford in its ads, and playing with it, taking it to its extreme. No offense, Ford, this is just a creative exercise. And no offense to Harrison Ford either, I hope.)
Here’s Harrison Ford in his Chevy from American Graffiti (Hey, maybe his Chevy skidded off the road and caught on fire during that movie’s climactic race because it was rebelling against its driver for being named “Ford”! Otherwise, it would have won that race, right Chevy? Maybe they could have a commercial explaining that.):
And here’s an example of the Suzy ChapStick commercials (“Catfish ChapStick?” How about ChapStick Hunter. That even makes him sound like he wants the product so badly, he’s always hunting for it!):
