When Josh York received an invitation from Chevrolet to be included in their next commercial campaign, he thought it was spam.
But then he remembered what he did for a living and what might have brought the bow-tie brand to his inbox.
A nearly lifelong Chevrolet Suburban driver and Michigan native, York is the founder of Soft Goods, a clothing company that operates out of a cut-and-sew garment factory in Detroit.
Last year he began a concentrated effort to promote his company’s made-and-sown-in-America business model that had drawn attention from large brands, now including General Motors.
The invitation for York was to participate in a commercial spot called “Heartbeat of America,” which is named after the featured song. The updated version of the song in the ad is from the Red Clay Strays, a rock band from Mobile, Alabama, best known for their single “Wondering Why,” which went viral in 2023.
What did Chevy want from York? His actual heartbeat.
“Chevy said, ‘We’ve got this really cool campaign coming up and we’re looking to elevate your story,’ ” York told the Detroit Free Press this month. “They said, ‘We think what you’re doing is great and it encapsulates what we’re going for here in the “Heartbeat of America” ― just real people doing things that keep the country and economy moving.’”
The most ‘American’ hearts
The Chevrolet team foregrounded candidates they considered the “heartbeat” of their respective communities, according to Kaitlyn Newman, Chevrolet advertising manager.
“We were looking across what stories we could tell. We knew we wanted to profile people across the country and talk about who they are, but we came up with the idea to actually record their heartbeats, put that into the audio mix being created to be the track and the song for all of our Heartbeat ads,” she said.
“I wasn’t aware of the original campaign,” said York. (The commercials ran on television from 1986 to 1993.) “But you can pretty quickly get a sense of what it means to be the heartbeat of America and it felt like a really big honor to be selected.”
Chevrolet also noted the general sound of the band they selected best fit the atmosphere they hoped to achieve. In a statement, the Red Clay Strays nodded to one of Detroit’s signature sounds for the ad.
“ ‘Heartbeat of America’ already has so much meaning and history behind it, so we wanted to approach it with a lot of respect,” the band said. “We weren’t trying to recreate something iconic; we wanted to honor its soul, especially the Motown influence that gave the original so much life. Lately, we’ve been leaning into a bigger, more soulful sound, so this song felt like a natural fit for where we are as a band.”
York’s heartbeat is threaded throughout the song alongside the cardiac rhythms of Tootsie Tomanetz, the 91-year-old pitmaster behind Snow’s BBQ in Texas, and Spencer, the Kansas-based lawn care and pressure washing social media influencer who created SB Mowing.
Finding three heartbeats that exemplify the brand’s message was easier in the social media age than it would have been during the first run of the original campaign, Steve Majoros, Chevrolet’s chief marketing officer, told the Detroit Free Press.
“We try to present a tapestry of people that share those values, that embrace the sense of Chevrolet values,” Majoros said. “What the evolving media landscape has allowed us to do is provide some context, some warmth and some humanity to what we’re doing.”
Chevy’s Newman said York appealed to the team due to his investment in Detroit and desire to center his company in the resurgence of the city.
“He is a great face among many to be part of this ‘keepers of the heartbeat’ group,” Newman said.
The fact that each participant selected had a Chevrolet connection was fortuitous, Majoros added. Spencer drives a Silverado for his lawn care work in the community. As part of their statement, the Red Clay Strays noted that, “Chevy has been part of our lives long before this, from first cars to new trucks and everything in between.”
Growing up in Livonia, York came from an automotive-heavy background.
“My mom’s family was very much Chrysler and my dad’s was very much Ford, but we drove a Chevy,” York said.
Capturing the sound of a Detroit heart
The act of recording the sound of his own heart was fun, York said. Chevrolet shipped him sound equipment as well as a stethoscope. He found a quiet room upstairs in his factory to record and then ship it off to the team.
Chevrolet also filmed a day-in-the-life sequence with York and his 15 employees at Soft Goods’ Detroit manufacturing facility. Social media spots of the other influencers will also air on Chevrolet’s marketing platforms at a later date.
Though undeniably in the fashion business, York considers himself foremost a businessman. His degree from Michigan State University is in supply chain management and his company’s practices with localized material sourcing stemmed from what was most practical at the time, he said.
Maintaining a domestic manufacturing approach has, incidentally, insulated Soft Goods from tariff damage.
“It wasn’t like a big, ‘Let’s do it to be patriotic’ thing ― I want to make a great product and there are great people around the country making great products,” he said. “I can get on the phone and talk to my fabric supplier; I can go visit them and actually build a relationship with them.”
York has been making T-shirts since he attended Livonia’s Stevenson High School, selling out of his locker iron-ons he made with his mom. In college, he screen-printed merchandise for his band to sell at shows. He went on to work as a production manager at Abercrombie & Fitch but left that job to pursue his independent career in Detroit.
Soft Goods employs 10 full-time cut-and-sew garment production employees, four employees who work in shipping and a sales and operational director. According to its website, Soft Goods sources its cotton from Texas. The fabric is knit in North Carolina, dyed in South Carolina, while the thread, zippers and labels for its garments come from Los Angeles.
The company partners with other American factories for large orders that include a facility in Brooklyn, two in Allentown, Pennsylvania, one in Chicago and one in Sterling Heights.
“There’s a big shift in the industry that people are caring more about what their clothes are made of and how they’re made more than they have in the past 20 or 30 years, even,” York said. “We’re trying to honor the old way of doing it but marrying that with more modern techniques and production to make something that is reminiscent of the way things used to be made, that has that quality.”
Jackie Charniga covers General Motors for the Free Press. Reach her at jcharniga@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Chevrolet launches updated ‘Heartbeat of America’ with real heartbeats
Reporting by Jackie Charniga, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jackie Charniga, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
