CORRECTION: The ad I discuss here was not by Ford, it was by GM, for the Chevy Volt. (I told you I was snoozing.) Even more jarring, considering GM's conservative communication tradition. —DM
Listening to The Morning Joe as I tried to snooze this morning, I heard a commercial where a cute young woman was enthusing about her new Ford—it was the Fusion, I guess, I wasn't listening too closely. She urged everyone to buy it, because, "You'll save a crap load of money."
Then she giggled and as I whirled my disbelieving head around I saw a caption on screen that said, "She meant boat load."
How long until she means shit load and says fuck load?*
* I'm old enough to have known men who said things like, "If you say 'shit' in front of a lady, what do you say when you have a flat tire on the Brooklyn Bridge?"
“Oooh, did you hear that? We had her say say ‘crap’! Man, we’re so edgy. The kids are totally going to think we’re cool now. And did we mention it is like a space ship?”
Sigh. Maybe that last little tag line should read “Chevy runs cheap.” Or maybe “Chevy runs aground.”
Not to take excess pleasure in the self-confessed screw up of a professional kindred, but you have no idea the joy it brought to my otherwise fucky day at seeing “CORRECTION” in red on a Murray epistle.
Tenjewberrymuds.
As a former GM comms guy, I’d dispute your claim of GM having a “conservative communications tradition,” but this is a marketing offense, not a comms offense. Unfortunately, this is what passes for being “edgy” in a lot of marketing today. If it gets people talking, it’s considered good, regardless of what they are saying. Not that funny to anyone old enough to afford a car that costs 41K.
Brian, when my dad did advertising for Chevy in the early 1960s, GM wouldn’t say “we,” as in, “we believe so-and-so is good for America.”
Nope. It had to be “General Motors believes ….”
I spoke with a corp comms VP in the late 1990s who said hiring new employees was, to that corporate communications department, like hiring Haitians, the place was so set in its ways.
On what grounds do you dispute my claim?
@Kathy: Fucky. Love that.