GM pulls ad of boy on fantasy rideSafety groups said Corvette spot glorified speed on highway
By Ed Garsten / The Detroit News
DETROIT — A kid’s dream cruise in a Chevrolet Corvette television commercial has come to a screeching halt. General Motors Corp. bowed to pressure from auto safety groups and pulled the ad that has been broadcast dozens of times during NBC’s 2004 Summer Olympics coverage.
The commercial for the all-new 2005 Corvette shows a young boy driving the sports car on a wild, sometimes airborne ride. At one point, he passes a girl, about the same age, also driving a Corvette.
The commercial was created by Campbell-Ewald to depict a young boy’s fantasy: owning the iconic car one day.
In a letter to GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner on Tuesday, seven consumer safety and advocacy groups lambasted the commercial as dangerous.
“Ads glorifying speed and high performance are common enough these days,” the letter said, “but this is one of the worst and most reprehensible examples produced by the auto industry.”
GM received positive feedback on the ad campaign, said Chevrolet spokesman Joe Jacuzzi. But the automaker decided to remove the commercial after complaints from viewers and others, including the letter from Consumers Union, Kids and Cars, Public Citizen and the Center for Auto Safety.
There are no official statistics about accidents in which underage children are at the wheel. But Kids and Cars, a Leawood, Ka., safety group, says there have been 25 such accidents in the past seven years that resulted in fatalities.
On Sunday, a 5-year old boy in East St. Louis, Ill., drove his uncle’s Cadillac for four blocks before pulling over and hitting a fence.
Chevrolet’s Jacuzzi said the commercial was never intended to depict a real-life situation.
While recognizing the commercial is supposed to depict a fantasy, Judith Stone, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said it also sent a dangerous message to children that it’s all right to slip behind the wheel of a fast car.
