Dear General Motors

Dear General Motors,

I highly recommend that you fire the advertising firm assigned to your Chevrolet brand. Granted, over the years they have produced memorable jingles. A Google search informed me that you had great success in the 1950s with a radio song called "See the USA in Your Chevrolet" sung as a duet on a musical variety show. This was last century so I would like to instead draw attention to a personal favorite from more recent years, "Have you driven a Chevy-y-y-y lately?" In the spirit of full disclosure, I regretfully admit that when this commercial was popular I bought a Ford instead. Sorry.

Despite your ad team's continued success at branding through radio advertisements, I am disappointed in their recent oversight displayed in a commercial for your new electric car, the Chevy Volt. It begins with an announcer saying "Ok, Listen." This request is followed by an extended moment of silence. The first time I heard the commercial, I didn't realize that it was silence and thought that I was missing something. However, the second time I listened to the commercial I followed your suggestion and listened to the silence and confirmed that it was in fact silence.

The announcer then returns to say, "That, my friend, is the sound of the future." This is where disappointment sets in. A proper Internet search would have revealed that silence is not the sound of the future. The future will be noisy and you need to know this now. A legislative committee in CA is currently working on recommendations for how to make hybrid and electric cars noisier so as to be heard by the blind. A noble cause indeed, but with potentially interesting results. For more information and very objective commentary, please see my recent post on this topic: http://cafuffle.blogspot.com/2008/08/noisy-cars.html.

Once you have fired your advertising team, please consider re-hiring some of your recently laid-off engineers from one your SUV divisions to make your new electric cars noisier. I recommend an external speaker system that produces a gass-guzzling sound. Guzzling certainly does make a sound, right? The law enforcement officials hired to enforce this new legislation will not be suspicious, I'm sure. For this project, I recommend someone from your Suburban line. However if your budgets require something with less development costs, you could try baseball cards in the wheel spokes. That, my friend, is the sound of the future.

Sincerely,
Disappointed in Framingham