GM's high-mileage Tahoe ads

General Motors recently launched a do-it-yourself ad campaign for the Chevy Tahoe SUV as part of a partnership with the TV show "The Apprentice," allowing consumers to post digital commercials at the company's site.

The plan quickly seemed to have backfired--critics of the company responded by posting thousands of negative ads to the site, charging the company with contributing to global warming and criticizing the car itself.

But was it really a misstep? Some bloggers are speculating that the company knew it would get negative comments, and by allowing them to remain, it would generate even more publicity than the ad campaign alone.

Blog community response:

"By then being open about it, GM is getting even more mileage from this campaign, and making it appear that they are more open to listening to those who disagree with them. Rather than reflecting negatively on GM, as the experts (and the reporters) would have you believe, GM actually comes out of it looking pretty good."
--Techdirt

"Hopefully, they know at some level - even at the relatively weak marketing level - that this is the conversation that should happen, and that 'responding' in a corporate sense (ie, Washington Post style) would do much more harm than good. Finally, you can note the jaded marketers' take on the whole thing: that it's just an exercise in buzz at the expense of brand equity."
--Bubblegeneration - Strategies for a discontinuous future

"Understanding and accepting opposing views does far more for a brand's mojo than killing off divergent opinion. Let's hope this is what's happening at Chevy and not that the ads are still up because it's the weekend and big companies don't work weekends."
--Adrants