Ah, to be hip and trendy…or not. Check out this post at BikePortland.org about a new General Motors ad campaign for its college discount program that mocks — get this — cyclists and pedestrians. Hmm.
The screen shot above of a pedestrian getting a puddle bath by a passing GM vehicle was taken from the GM website.
I look at it this way: it’s fun to see Detroit threatened by students on sidewalks and bicycles. As they should be. Maybe next time GM could make fun of people taking transit, too.
UPDATE, WEDNESDAY, OCT. 12: General Motors is changing the ad campaign in response to criticism. Here’s an L.A. Times story.
Categories: Transportation News
Posted some thoughts on this here:
http://www.endinggridlock.org/post/11361868653/gm-brand-tarnished-by-offensive-anti-bike-pedestrian
Metro has taken shots at drivers in their marketing, even going so far as to call driving naughty and taking transit nice. An odd thing to do since one of the “products” Metro offers is freeway planning.
It’s true that many are on the bus because they have to be. It doesn’t have to be that way though. Many other cities are thriving with well designed public transit systems that complement a car culture.
Just today, I took the bus, took a quick nap, and read a few news articles on my phone. Can you do that while driving stuck in traffic (safely, that is)?
Public transit is safer, more cost effective, more productive, and the list of positives just goes on and on. The people have to want it, but until then we will be stuck in reverse with the car dominating our lives for better or worse.
This dumb and offensive campaign goes go after transit too. Scroll down at:
http://gmauthority.com/blog/2010/10/gm-redesigns-college-discount-website-reality-doesnt-have-to-suck/
But note that the campaign which is still running in publications like the UCLA Daily Bruin is actually a year or so old.
That wouldn’t be hard to do. Heck, I could just send them random cell phone pictures from the inside of line 212 or line 108 on any given evening for some real fodder.
GM would just be addressing the fact that for most people, they’re on the bus because they have to be. Goodness knows you know the Metro Board isn’t waiting around 90 minutes for a South Bay or San Fernando Valley line coach to show up to take them to One Gateway Plaza.
General Motors is doomed and they’re desperate to try anything to hook impressionable college kids. Sad society we live in.
Go Metro.
“Maybe next time GM could make fun of people taking transit, too.”
Oh, but they’ve already done that with this “Creeps and Weirdos” ad.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rllayman/9006896/