General Motors Co. is back in the Super Bowl in a big way.
The automaker will air five Chevrolet commercials during the Feb. 6 game on Fox, the company said Monday, along with two ads in the pregame show and one in the post-game show, which it also is sponsoring. GM also plans a tie-in with Fox’s post-Super Bowl “Glee” episode and will give a Camaro to the game’s most valuable player.
GM wouldn’t say what it is spending on the blitz. But with commercial time averaging about $3 million for 30 seconds, it’s a multimillion-dollar investment for a company that has sat out the game for two years as it reorganized and emerged from a government-led bankruptcy.
The ads bear the tagline “Chevy Runs Deep,” introduced during the World Series last year. In one ad, a seemingly mundane car dealership ad is disrupted when a Camaro suddenly morphs into the Bumblebee character from the “Transformers” movies.
In another, people in a retirement home discuss a Chevrolet Cruze ad they are watching on TV. A third spot shows a woman driving a Camaro through action-movie sequences, while two people talk about the action in a voiceover as though they were coming up with a movie.
In the fourth ad, a Silverado acts like Lassie, helping a boy’s parents rescue him from increasingly bizarre scenarios.
The fifth ad shows world-changing inventions powered by electricity, including the light bulb and computer, ending with Chevrolet’s electric car, the Volt.
The ads are humorous, but General Motors Global Chief Marketing Officer Joel Ewanick said the company tried hard to keep the humor from overshadowing the message.
“We have an enormous responsibility and opportunity to reintroduce Chevrolet in an engaging and interesting way,” he said.
Ewanick said GM plans to release the ads beginning Friday to Facebook fans of its cars. The commercials were created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco.
GM last advertised during the Super Bowl in 2008, before the auto industry was brought to its knees by the recession. It emerged from bankruptcy reorganization in 2009 and returned to being a publicly traded company at the end of last year in a $23.1 billion initial public offering, the biggest in U.S. history.
General Motors historically had been one of the heaviest advertisers in the game. Between 2001 and 2010 it was the fourth largest Super Bowl advertiser, spending $61.1 million, according to Kantar Media.
At least nine automakers are airing commercials during the Super Bowl this year, with Ford Motor Co. being the most notable absence.
A Kia ad shows an alien driving a Kia; Volkswagen features an animated Beetle speeding through a forest.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More