cool GM ad during the Olympics featuring "The Story" I happened to catch it while watching the Olympics opening ceremony I recorded last night. Even though I'm no GM fan, I enjoyed the ad. edit: From GMnext | GM Blog: Alternative Fuels, Technology, & Innovation Blog Archive GM at the Olympics, it looks like it premiered during the Olympics. The song used in the the commercial is "The Story” by Brandi Carlile.
Even cooler is the fact that Brandi Carlile will donate all $$$ made from the use of her song "The Story" to grassroots organizations that focus on find alternate fuel sources. Gotta love it! Not a fan of GM, but love the fact that Brandi laid out some guidelines for the commercial if GM was going to use her song.
From Brandi Carlile's MySpace (in a blog she posted today): Why "The Story" Is In A GM Commercial Hey all, I'm writing you from a plane bound for Portugal. While we are gone you may have already heard our song "The Story" in an Olympic advertisement for GM. Depending on how you feel about music and advertising in general, you may be wondering why a band like us would do something like this. Well I have a few good reasons, so allow me to shine a little light on the subject. When GM first approached our band to use "The Story" in their 2008 Olympic ad visions of SUVs and full-size pick-up trucks driving through a rugged mountain range were dancing through my head. I promptly and politely declined. (Although I don't want to be a hypocrite, our band did tour in a GM gas-guzzling van for many years) But, when they came back to us and offered to involve us in an ad campaign promoting hybrids, bio fuel, bio hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell cars and yes, even the infamous electric car the Chevy Volt, I felt the need to think twice about having the opportunity to be a part of a huge American car company creating an ad campaign for environmentally responsible cars. We feel they allowed more than a fair amount of input from us and made an honest effort to create an environmentally conscious ad. We are proud of it. I also believe in American jobs. Keeping people employed in the US and building fuel-efficient/alternative cars could help reduce and one day help eliminate our dependency on foreign oil. To really make a positive impact regarding the climate crisis we all need to work together to make the change, even GM. Regardless of what my feelings are about the agenda behind the sudden wave of corporate environmental awareness, its still awareness just the same. Thanks for hearing us out. The twins and I are proud to say that every last penny from the GM ad is being donated and split between several environmental organizations exploring alternative energy and effecting change on a grass roots level…sweet! Names and links to these organizations are soon to follow just as soon as the paperwork is done! J And yes dad, we are still loud mouth tree huggers…sorry. xobc
No problem with musicians trying to do what they think is right. Big problem with what GM considers environmentally responsible cars.
Re: cool GM ad during the Olympics featuring "The Story" Thanks for posting. Yes. I love that song. My first thought is I would love to (have) hear(ed) it by Orbison or Cash. Not sure who that is singing. Yes, the visuals on the ad are nice, too. They needed a good ad like that. I grew up a GM guy, and have been a Chrysler adult, now a Prius commuter. But, I've always liked most GMs. I worked at a GM dealership before as well.
You mean (as they showed in their Olympics commercial) like the Hummer? I thought they shut that division down for lack of sales. When the ad was flashing by, describing how they're tested, it says, "they've been crashed" . . . I must have been thinking of the EV1 at the time because I could have sworn it said, "they'be been crushed". Yep, real environmental responsibility. May I be so bold as to quote, GM's head skumbag Lutz, when he said that global warming, "is a crock of $hit". sounds like environmental leadership extrordinair to me
I couldn't find the ad. Is pushing a full sized Chevy truck now an Olympic event? Lutz now believes in global warming because he found a pot of gold in his "crock of sh!t". Better to spend limited corporate resources on sports sponsorships and TV ads than on R&D to design & build a product to compete with Toyota.
Donating to GM's "alternate fuel sources', unfortunately, goes in too large a part to hydrogen/fuel cels, as the commercial shows. THIS is what W Bush keeps ranting is 'his energy plan' (that should make everyone suspect) ... which in fact means he/the feds HAVE no plan. Hydrogen is the dog & pony show that never delivers ... decade after decade, since the 1970's. The fact that our government can poor millions into a test car & make the test model work, NEVER means it'll ever be affordable (evidenced by NONE of the working models ever costing under 100's of thousands) or practical (it'd take over a trillion dollars to build infrastructure) or efficient (the same power source they used to strip hydrogen from would have been 4X more efficient if they'd just use the power source). Equally sad, is that 99% of the public doesn't either know this, or care. If they did, they'd write congress and tell them to stop wasting their tax dollars immediately.
So it's a commercial in which GM claims it will build cars that it has no intention in fact of ever building, but the ignorant public will believe GM is moving toward sustainable energy when in fact it is doing everything in its power to keep people burning fossil fuels until there are none left. No criticism on the singer or the band, who I've never heard of. They probably believe that they are promoting environmental awareness. But the commercial is just more bullshit from GM.
I don't remember that commercial but I DO remember the one Chevy had that had a gorgeous man making dinner reservations while ironing!