Ad campaigns

Advertising campaigns were named after military campaigns for a good reason.

This 1933 Chevy movie was not for public consumption. It was solely sent to Chevy’s 4000 dealers. It trained them to handle a year-long campaign with every detail carefully pre-planned.

The film is ‘highly produced’, unlike the usual drab filmstrip. It uses original music and original dramatic sketches to show how customers were supposed to respond to each stage of the preparation, announcement, and media type. The newspaper readers saw the first pre-announcement, then the more upscale magazine readers, then Al Jolson “blanketed the nation” on radio.

1933 was a tough time for industry. FDR’s reforms hadn’t created any direct economic effects yet, but his instant total focus on solving problems immediately raised public confidence. Auto sales started to rebound in 1934 and continued upward.

1933 was also pivotal in Chevy vs Ford. Chevy got its first advantage in ’28 from a Ford own-goal when Ford shut down for six months to switch production to the Model A. Ford recovered in ’32 with the V8. Chevy felt the need for a heavy counterattack, and this campaign was the result.

The main new feature, constantly repeated in the film and also in Chevy newsreels, was the front vent flap, called No-Draft Ventilation. Not a serious innovation, but you tout what you’ve got. GM’s version of the vent flap included crank control, which continued on GM cars into the 70s when vent flaps disappeared. Ford and Nash and Hudson picked up the crank for a while, but by 1950 GM was alone again. Packard, missing the luxury point as usual, never copied it. Chrysler finally started to add cranks to some top models in the mid 60s. The crank did make a difference, especially in the era of wraparound windshields when the flaps were narrow and hard to move manually. Without the crank the vent was held open by friction, which generally failed in older cars.

Nonbark: This film doesn’t mention Synchromesh, which was Chevy’s BIG advantage in ’33. Chrysler and Ford didn’t get synced until ’35 and ’36 respectively. The newsreels also fail to mention it.

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Later: I was partly wrong about Packard. They did use cranks in the ’30s, for the front door and also for the vent pane in the rear quarter of long sedans. Like the others, Packard gave up cranks later.

I was fully wrong about Nash and Hudson. Both continued vent cranks until the end of both brands in 1957.