We’ve seen a lot of stupid videos lately, such as the 10:10 fiasco of blowing up school children because they were ambivalent about reducing their carbon footprint. Now, we are treated to a “behind the scenes” video of how Hyundai shot a commercial for a gasoline powered car, using no gasoline and leaving no carbon footprint. There’s all sorts of clever human powered props, and the whole set resembles some sort of Rube Goldberg contraption. But the real punch line is: they had some guys push the car to get it going for one scene.
Honestly, I don’t see the point. It seems beyond ridiculous to make a zero carbon footprint commercial for cars that use gasoline. Note all the trucks, rental, and equipment vans surrounding the commercial shoot, now how did all those get there? Pedal power? Watch this video:
Here’s another video aptly titled “Creating the illusion”:
And yet another on the alternative power sources:
Nice, but the thing that makes this a candidate for the FAIL blog is this: transporting all this equipment to the shoot couldn’t be done “carbon free”.
Here’s the final product, the actual commercial:
If they really wanted to create an “illusion” you’d think they would have had the good sense to keep the U-haul, Budget, and Ryder rental trucks out of the video scenes. But, when you are on a mission, details like this apparently don’t matter. On the plus side, at least they didn’t blow up anything or anyone.
h/t to Tom Nelson
Oh, hell.
I’m an eco-rapist, but love me anyway.
Tell me another one. “We saved ten pounds of ‘carbon’ by pushing the car on set.”
Save the planet!
(St)age of stupid. Good grief.
geoff says:
October 28, 2010 at 12:44 pm
I am a Hyundai dealer, and also a skeptic, and an active skeptic at that.
Years ago I was a Hyundai salesman. I bought my daughter an Accent for $8,990 back in 1998. It is still running. Not bad cars bad commericals.
This is Hollywood and its flavor of the week working with a green wash ad for a company that only wants to sell cars. Whatever cost differntial there was between this ad and any other for the same product would be seen by manufacturer as part of the price of advertizing.
All commercials are propaganda. Why should this one be viewed as anything else.
slp says:
October 28, 2010 at 11:36 am
Human power is not carbon-free.
Actually Human Power (forgetting all those trucks in the ad) is essentially “carbon free” – we only expel the carbon that we have ingested, which has been taken out of the atmosphere in the last few years (through plants). Same with animals (which is why I laugh at the stupid Greenies who think cows have a carbon footprint just by existing). Burning fossil fuels, on the other hand, is releasing carbon back into the atmosphere that was originally taken out of the atmosphere millions of years ago.
But that’s not to say that the concept of carbon (dioxide) as a pollutant is a reality – in fact it’s a complete bunch of Government-funded unscientific crap, bolstered by the kind of useful morons who made this ad.
“and the whole set resembles some sort of Rube Goldberg contraption.”
In the UK such items are described as “Heath Robinson contraptions.” Heath Robinson was a well known (at least in Brit land) as an inventor (or deviser) of fantastical machines. You could see that they worked (or appeared to) but it was not possible to discern HOW they worked.
per my earlier message
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Heath_Robinson
They also wasted more oxygen than they should have.
They never heard of using a “green”screen ?
After watching those videos, and laughing about all this, a though has come to my mind, just imagine all this of climate change, is really true, and that this “thing” was done in order to help save the planet…
Oh god, we are doomed!
If they want to lower their CO2 footprint they should quit building cars!, not even EV would work, as electric power would come mainly from fossil fuels.
Clearly Hyundai knows that the cars they manufacture are destroying the planet. For their crimes against humanity they should have to provide each of us with a free automobile. Where is Dewey, Cheatum and Howe when we need them?? 😉
Ray says:
October 28, 2010 at 2:15 pm
“They never heard of using a “green”screen ?”
Does that mean that Star Wars is a sustainable franchise?
‘Nice, but the thing that makes this a candidate for the FAIL blog is this: transporting all this equipment to the shoot couldn’t be done “carbon free”.
The power of the sense of self satisfaction and smugness got everything there.
When I saw this commercial for the first time, I actually felt bad ( sad ) for the good folks at Hyundai. Granted ,they have a great product line now, and have come a very long way in a short time to achieve this. Their new Genesis is competitive in some ways to the BMW’s and the Mercedes Benz ,and the Lexus. What irks me is that they feel like they have to demonstrate their commitment to the environment just like BMW or Mercedes are doing. This commercial did not do it for them. Honestly, as I watched the ending and saw how much effort and expense was put into making a 30 second commercial I was shocked. Wouldn’t it have been a whole lot cheaper and a whole lot easier to just go out on the highway and film the car as it passes a truck?
A whole lot greener too….
Thats all the commercial was anyway right? The green theme did nothing for me, but what do you expect, I am on a skeptic website..haha…I bet the greenies thought ” it was just fabulous ” ..gag me…
Ian
I think the sole purpose of Hyundai making the first ad, ‘carbon free’ as it is, was just for them to make this second longer video advertising it.
реst соntrоl sеrviсе says:
October 28, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Who’s letting the spammer in? That’s 3 threads I’ve seen a similar spam post.
DaveE.
Who wants to buy a Korean car anyhow.
ShrNfr:
“Is this an example of the Car Not cycle or the Auto cycle? I forget my thermo after all these years.”
A Stirling effort! I just moved you up several positions in my punster Rankines.
—
My perspective?
It’s a remarkable throwback to the ways in which movies were created in the days of the Keystone Kops.
In terms of both dollar-denominated expense and environmental impacts overall (not just on the “broken window fallacy” myopia of these ‘viro idiots), the use of power tools beats the hell out of coolie labor.
In truth, I’m much LESS moved to consider Hyundai a responsible vendor of goods than I was before this fiasco was brought to my attention.
—
Anthony,you just dont get it do you?It’s the ‘thought’ that counts!
I loved the comment of the greenie near the end,
“I hope to see more productions like this”
Of course you do, I am sure your wallet is fatter now Hyundai paid you to help them be “green”, I must admit it worked because I am “green” now too, green with envy. These people are creating “make believe” jobs. They are being paid to help reduce CO2 which still hasn’t been proven to be a “bad thing”, so technically anyone saying they have a low carbon footprint are really advertising…. well nothing.
Disingenuous and insulting. How stupid do the greenies think consumers are?
Hyundai should be ashamed of their ironic attempt at greenwashing.
Could be critical, but there must be a happy medium between what Hyundai did and what Hope and Change did with Air Force One to get a photo op of the NYC skyline.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/item_oNWhYSTmV89BQ5uQZuReBO
Hyundai has a sensei of humor. Shouldn’t the CO2/kw ratio of human power be in the same range as for diesel, gasoline, or natural gas engines?
vboring says: October 28, 2010 at 11:53 am
Why not just buy carbon offsets? At $.05 per ton, it’d only cost a few bucks to make a traditional car commercial carbon neutral.
Good thought. Perhaps I could stay on Bill and Hillary’s insider email list if I donated a ton of offsets to their slush fund. Better yet, donate a ton to Halliburton in Hillary’s name to help ameliorate Halliburton’s sin of working with oil companies.
PR stunt, plain and simple. Hyundai’s effort isn’t zero emissions, it is zero substance.