I really love the “Then & Now” ad, celebrating 100 years of Chevrolet. It’s very simple visually, clever, and emotionally engaging.
It’s a very “pure” idea.
I drive a Ford, but have now huge love for the Chevy Runs Deep campaigns. If it’s not an Audi, my next car might just be a Chevy. Camaro probably, just on the merits of the advertising. And design. And Transformers movies, but I digress.
What I find even more fascinating is knowing where the idea came from in the first place.
I discovered the @dearphotograph project a few weeks before the Chevy ad launched, and while I might have been late at the party, I love how fast a brand the stature of Chevrolet acted to take to scale the idea of “taking a picture of a picture from the past in the present” . Check out the Dear Photograph website or Google/image “Dear Photograph” to see how hundreds of photographers were doing this already! It’s powerful.
SORRY, IT’S TOO LATE FOR YOU
This one is taken now, it’s too late to use it in your own ads, at least in this very immediate way.
What Chevy did is recognize a an emerging meme, and act on it at the “speed of culture”. Takes awareness of what’s going on, and fast decision making.
An advertising agency’s job is to know this. But the world is moving faster now. The client needs to do their part too – be curious, explore, and be open to culture in the making. Gotta move fast to be the first.
Kudos to Chevy.
Everyone else, keep your eyes peeled.