#732 Eco-Hybrid

Sometimes I go online to watch highlights from the late night TV talk shows. When you do, you have to watch these little commercials before you can see the snippet of content you want. You also see them over and over.
So after I saw one recently for the umpty-umpth time, I was able to finally read the small print. It was interesting to me, especially in these gas-challenged times.
The commercial was for a Chevy Tahoe. The writing on the screen said the Two-Mode Chevy Tahoe Hybrid gets 50% better City Fuel Economy than the Non-Hybrid Tahoe. Now that’s original, I thought, a car company comparing one of its cars to itself in a different version.
Can’t be too full of praise or why would you ever want to buy the other one? But you still want to sell the first one too. A delicate commercial challenge.
In any event, the commercial video featured a guy riding a bike through the woods. No picture of the car at all. And the audio of the commercial left the impression that the gas savings would leave you money to enjoy the outdoors you were supposedly saving by buying green.
Then there was the small print I finally saw. It said the Tahoe Hybrid got 21 miles a gallon.
Oh my god.
And that’s 50% better than the non-hybrid?
You mean people were paying for a car that got only ten miles a gallon? So I’d be paying $3.50 just to drive one way to work? That’s a vente macchiato. A half dozen donuts.
3 bean burritos at Taco Bell. Where I’d probably get more gas.
These people driving big SUVs getting only 10 miles a gallon have got to be mad! It’s a wonder they aren’t doing an Exxon Tea Party in outright revolt over the price of gas!
You got hand to Chevy for coming out with a hybrid. But man, what an advertising challenge. Better make sure you only advertise where the people who already bought a non-hybrid aren’t likely to watch. These people are on the edge.
That “Chevy, an American Revolution” thing just might come true.
America, ya gotta love it.