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
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Wonderful discussion regarding whether this ad reduced carbon footprint. I found myself pulled into the arguments until I realized… I don’t buy into AGW. Therefore, who cares? From my perspective, this was all a marketing stunt aimed at eco-consumers. Too bad for Hyundai, I’m not part of that demographic but I do earn a respectable salary. I’m unmoved by green marketing…in fact, I’m put off by it.
Sorry, Hyundai. I’ll more likely purchase from a manufacturer who convinces me their core business is producing a superior product. In my book, green (for its own sake) is not high on my list of desirable features.
Net result of all this Hyundai green wonderfulness? I bought Ford.
Think about what this commercial is advocating — we should use a tremendous amount of “human” power instead of electrical or combustion engine technology to achieve our goals. Instead of using a gas powered engine and motors to provide all the energy they require to physically move objects, they have a dozen humans (or more) grinding gears, pedaling on bicycles and exerting themselves to produce this 30 second ad. If these people had lived at the beginning of the industrial revolution and succeeded in convincing the masses we would still be using real horses to move goods on wagons and we would all have hand pumps in our houses to get water. In those kinds of conditions most of these people would be dead by the age of 50 and would have to marry at the age of 17 to ensure they have time to have dozens of children so that half of them can survive and provide labor on the family homestead. They would never know what “robusta” coffee tastes like, never hear a rendition of Mozart, never see the ocean or climb a mountain. It is an utter lack of appreciation of what science and technology and engineering has done for mankind — and instead turns the virtues of the genius that comes before them into vice. The true “luxury” of modern mankind is to act like a spoiled child that detests his parents and decries everything they have worked hard to provide. And that is what this commercial is.
They were shot in Toronto and took up a whole parking lot for a couple of days
What about all the energy and the carbon footprint to make the extra props and backgrounds for this one commercial. Probably easier, cheaper and less of a carbon footprint to just film it driving down the street.
Michael S says:
October 30, 2010 at 7:37 am
Correct: That rattling sound you hear is Darwin turning in his grave.