What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Plenty!

An ad agency for GM had a cool idea: let the public create a video ad for the Chevy Tahoe SUV. David Utter of Web Pro News asked: "What could possibly go wrong?"

"How about a slew of global warming complaints and viscious anti-SUV spots, quickly becoming viral videos and zipping around the internet?

Those viral spots quickly gave General Motors a PR headache as numerous criticisms of the company, the Bush Administration, and SUV owners became the focus of hundreds of people all building user-generated content.

">CNet collected some of the better creations that have probably already vanished from the website, though to GM's credit it is not pulling every ad that has a negative tone. One of the funnier creations imposed this text over scenes of a Chevy Tahoe on the roll:

Larger than any mortal needs
with four wheel drive for conditions you'll
probably never encounter...
and sized to intimidate other drivers
& damage others' cars more than yours
gives you false confidence so you can
continue to drive like a heedless jerk
...because you're the only one
on the whole damn planet.

A host of other spots, many much more critical and less publishable, have been collected by the Democratic Underground website. Quite a few commercials have already been removed by GM."