A family road trip to a small town Up North.
It’s an experience to which many Michiganders, as well as Americans across the country, can relate.
Universality is a key decision-maker for the marketing team at General Motors’ top-selling vehicle brand Chevrolet when choosing inspiration for its “Holiday Card to America” advertisement, which is how the family road trip (in a 1987 Chevrolet Suburban) came to be the backdrop for this year’s spot titled “Memory Lane.”
Slated to air during the Thanksgiving NFL broadcast, “Memory Lane” hallmarks the pit stops and pitfalls of family travel during the holidays. It marks Chevrolet’s fifth annual seasonal ad painstakingly crafted to tug at the heartstrings without the burden of a heavy sales pitch.
Exploring the joys and heartbreak of raising children from a mother’s perspective tugs indeed. Previous years portrayed a son navigating the pressures surrounding his college decision on a drive with his father in his now-deceased grandfather’s 1987 Chevy pickup. Another year, the spot showcased a woman’s struggle with early-stage Alzheimer’s who still remembers rides with her granddaughter in a 1972 Chevy Suburban.
Featuring vintage vehicles serves a dual purpose ― Chevy marketing leaders say it highlights the intergenerational heft of Chevrolet’s brand recognition as well as the longevity of its products. The vehicle serves as the stage in the company-curated theater of memory, grief, nostalgia and love drafted by the brand’s creative agency and marketing teams.
The goal of the advertisement, first launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, is to uplift while being respectful of the mood of the country, according to Steve Majoros, Chevrolet’s chief marketing officer, though he called the decision to foreground a conventional family unit this holiday season “apolitical.”
“At Chevrolet, we take our responsibility to be an accepting, inviting and appropriate brand for all Americans. We are equally proud of the work we do across geographies and demographics. Identity politics and things like that play about zero role in what we do,” he said. “This year, we were thinking of our line, ‘Together, Let’s drive.’ We can be together as a country and set aside things that get in the way and talk about and try to celebrate the things that matter.”
First-time motherhood
Another commonality among those working on this year’s campaign? Parenthood.
Chevrolet brand campaign lead Jaztan “Jazzy” Teen jumped at the chance to be part of the campaign ― even before she discovered she was to be a mom herself.
Her due date falls in the first week of December.
“I’m hoping the spot goes live before the baby comes,” she said. “Creating this story about upholding tradition and spending time with family … it makes you realize how quickly time can go by. If I wasn’t pregnant, I would still look at this spot and think of my mom and my grandma and the traditions around our house, but now I’m going to be a mom myself, I’m thinking about what I’ll be doing.”
While the spot isn’t modeled off of any particular family, Teen said most internally who saw the ad found a window into their own holiday traditions. Despite her storytelling training and her role in crafting a narrative designed to make people cry, Teen found she was far from immune herself. She surprised herself during filming, she said, by tearing up at certain scenes.
“In the script, the mom is trying to multitask and reach a bottle in the back seat; that was stressful to watch,” she said. “I was thinking, would that be something my husband and I would be able to do? Know when the baby is hungry? Also, I don’t want to wake up and my baby is now 18. That has kind of been the moment that gets me choked up. I don’t want to get through the diaper phase and then it’s all over.”
GM may be a global corporation, but a sizable portion of its workforce resides in metro Detroit. The shoot took several days and spanned several locations in Michigan, Teen said, to take advantage of the scenery most on the team call home. Locations included Kensington State Park in Milford, Bruce Township, Lexington and Pleasant Ridge, and eagle-eyed viewers can spot several “Easter eggs” that further reveal where the short film is set.
In one part, the family handles ornaments wrapped in Detroit Free Press newspapers that are stored in a Sander’s cookie tin. A Michigan “mitten” ornament appears on a tree at a Christmas tree farm the family stops at along the way.
“I kept the Michigan mitten ornament from the shoot,” Teen confessed. “I wanted it so that I could tell my daughter one day that I was on set when she was in my belly.”
Making ads in digital landscape
The spot is among several channels that Chevrolet is using to reach and engage an increasingly digital savvy audience. Majoros said the brand works with over five influencers that are Chevy drivers to create content around how the brand fits into their lifestyles, as well as incorporating more experiential events for Chevy drivers.
As part of this year’s holiday marketing push, Chevrolet is doing a five-city Chevy Holiday Magic tour. A Chevy fleet of Silverado EV pickups will travel from San Diego to Detroit to host five festive holiday events. The fleet will arrive in San Diego on Dec. 1, Dallas on Dec. 4, Nashville on Dec. 7, Atlanta on Dec. 9 and conclude in Detroit on Dec. 11.
“In this day and age where content is shorter and fast, it’s nice to step back. It’s not like we’re old fuddy duddies,” Majoros told the Free Press. “They’re highly emotionally charged purchases that people don’t purchase often. You need a shorthand. If you’re not in this space every day, when your time comes when you’re thinking about cars, you’ve got to have top-of-mind awareness.”
Part of the rollout includes cinema spots. Majoros said movie theaters are the perfect venue for prospective customers to experience the full 3 minute and 21 second advertisement without distraction.
As for the ad itself, Majoros said it’s an area where the company purposefully does not cut corners. While GM does not publicly disclose advertising spend, he said that the company spent what is considered industry-expected for higher end productions.
The spot ends powerfully, he said, with a series of quick cuts that summarize each vignette of the journey ― starting with two siblings turned toward each other and laughing, graduating to the scene where they’re young adults facing away from one another, looking out their respective windows. That sequence ends on an empty seat, which for an empty nester like Majoros, was a “gut punch.”
“I remember when my middle son, who went to Michigan, was in freshman year. My other sons were already away. I was home alone for one of the first times and I just started bawling. Like, what the heck is going on? This life is just flying by,” he said. “You get like 10 years with your kids. The first two years you’re just trying to keep them alive, and then they’re gone, with their friends.”
Mom’s role in holiday magic
Conner Huber, global brand strategy director for Chevrolet, faced a similar emotional revelation when viewing the ad. Huber, originally from Wisconsin, has three children ages 12, 9 and “almost 6.”
Huber knew the group had landed on the right topic for the ad during the pitching phase, where she noticed people felt compelled to share their own stories of car trips growing up, revealing the most specific details of their personal family traditions. She recalled her own childhood trekking across rural Iowa to visit her grandparents.
“I resonate so much with that scene of packing up the car. When that little girl was drawing on the window. Back in the day, you had a Walkman, you’d fight in the back, you’d read until you got carsick … having the places along the way that helped you as a child to mark time,” she said. “Now, watching the film, I identify in some ways with the children when I was taking that drive every holiday, but also with the adults. I remember when my kids were teeny and the trips we made to go home for the holidays.”
The decision to anchor the narrative in the mom’s perspective was also natural, Huber added, speaking from her experience.
“There’s a moment when you realize that your holiday magic is just your mom. I put so much effort, not in making the quote-unquote perfect Christmas, but in an experience for them to remember, for them to know they were loved,” she said. “For many families, the mom is the carrier of those traditions.”
Jackie Charniga covers General Motors for the Free Press. Reach her at jcharniga@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Chevy centers mom, family road trips in 5th ‘Holiday Card to America’
Reporting by Jackie Charniga, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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