Unlike most great ads, its not a one minuter and there are no powerful characters or dialogues. Its a very simple ad that has just one hero - the product itself. And unlike all car ads, there are no cliched stories and it does not talk overtly about the power, mileage, young adult protagonist or the awesome looks of the car.
Have a look, if you haven't seen already.
The lyrics go as follow...
Run boy run there's a storm on the run... dust... rising!
There's a beast on the prowl, there's a roar, there's a growl... thunder and lightning!
Wow! Beautiful visuals, amazing lyrics, awesome voice and great music. A brilliant package. There is no way that the target audience for Cruze will not like it.
Talking about the target audience, for any car company, typically the key sets of audience are...
- Potential customers - the ones who are actually considering buying a sedan that is high on comfort, value for money and stylish enough for them to buy it. The car must elevate their status within their heads and more importantly, in their peer group. For a prospective Cruze customer, I am assuming, from the commercial, that they are looking at selling it to fast rising corporate kinds rather than the old businessmen. These young men want to play, rather than just commute in comfort. For "play", the hunter and prowl is a brilliant place to be at.
- The automotive fanatics - the kind of people who know what horsepower the engine is, what is the turning radius, the clearance and other such things that are Greek and Latin to people like us. These people participate in forums and post their opinion on portals. These are the people that potential customers actually turn towards for their buy decision. Even though, the commercial has zero stats or numbers, it has everything that would make a car fanatic take note. The drifts and looks will make one search for more. The Cruze website does an ok job at it.
- Dealers/sales team etc - the ones who will actually sell the car. These people are often oblivious to the content of the ad but need the gratification that the "company" is advertising on TV and is spending money to help sell easier.
- Competitors - merely to take a jab at em ;P
The ad clearly does a good job at appealing at all 4. Even though, it would be tough to get the sales data just for Cruze but it would be interesting to see. At least in this category, premium sedan category, there must be a direct correlation between advertisement and sales. Since in India, a car is a very very high involvement product, its really important for a car commercial to appeal to emotions.
In terms of how a planner would have approached this TVC, a typical planner is trained to think in two dimensions - rational and emotional. Rational - you talk of the benefits that are apparent, measurable and verifiable. Examples could be better mileage, superior looks, impeccable build quality or extra space. Emotional - you talk of benefits that a customer will perceive after they are exposed to your communication and hence are non-quantifiable, subjective and open to interpretation. The examples could be "makes you a hero", "takes you home", "your first car" etc. The rational ones are easy to make and the emotional ones are difficult to pull off. This commercial is definitely not rational and slightly evolved for classifying as purely emotional.
For the category, the commercial is spot on. Easily breaks the clutter and makes the audience take a note. Take a note of the hunter on prowl! In the end, its a #win commercial for Chevrolet. Kudos to the agency that came up with the insight and wrote this commercial (who?). And to the client that approved the concept and is actually spending money to air it.
I'd rate the commercial a 4 on 5. Go see it. And yes, it makes me want to go and buy the car. Just that I dont have the money to do so. Sigh!
Disclaimer: Personal, opinion, only.
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