Friday, January 9, 2009

'55 Chevrolet Magazine Ad

BLUE-RIBBON BEAUTY that's stealing the thunder from the high priced cars!

A really nice ad idea to promote the notion that Chevy was as good as they come. The illustration by Fred Ludekins is beautifully done and very much in keeping with the brand image being constructed by Jim Hastings for Chevrolet. And it's fun to see all the non-GM cars in the background even if they are mostly very high priced foreign makes. Chevy liked to compare itself to Cadillac but couldn't except in a round about way like this. Jim Hastings and his copy partner Pete Booth were beginning to change the brand image of Chevy in a very important way. More car for the money had always been a Chevrolet theme and now new and more memorable ways were being used to make the point. The color on this old slide does not give the illustration the credit it deserves. An interesting detail is the Chevrolet logo. It has undergone numerous changes since this ad was produced. Today the word Chevrolet does not appear in the bow tie. If you watch in other ads you will see lots of little changes to it but not to the bow tie shape.

1 comment:

Tony said...

This is THE CLASSIC 55 Chevy ad. It's awesome how this looks like an ad for an antique car show today.