Earlier this year, General Motors announced its new Periscope safety brand, which is “committed to combining vehicle technology, research and advocacy,” to help further the automaker’s vision of a world with zero crashes. Now, the automaker has released a new dedicated television ad to promote the newly established Periscope brand, which uses a light, humorous tone to address the rather serious issue of vehicle safety.
This ad features a young mom getting into her Chevy Blazer after securing her two young children into their car seats. When she goes to put the vehicle into reverse, she notices on the rearview camera that a small Pomeranian dog is sitting directly in her path. Expectedly, her kids immediately start begging her to keep the dog, at which point she notices a “missing dog” sign offering a $1,000 reward stapled to a nearby lamppost. This ad is dubbed ‘Pleasant Surprises – Lost and Found’ – seemingly because the dog’s presence was a pleasant surprise to the kids, but the “missing dog” sign was a pleasant surprise for the mom.
“Moms always seem to have eyes in the back of their head, but sometimes you need the real deal,” GM’s description for the ad says, referring to the vehicle’s standard rearview camera.
This ad isn’t for one of GM’s four vehicle brands, but rather the Periscope safety brand. Periscope was established so GM could not only focus more on in-vehicle safety technology, but also on teaching safe driving practices to motorists and advocating for safer roads.
According to Periscope’s data, there are over six million crashes in the United States and Canada per year, while 4.5 million people are injured or disable per year in car crashes. Car crashes are also the leading cause of teen death in the United States and cost Americans hundreds of millions of dollars per year in crash damage, emergency response services and more.
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Comments
Would like to hear and much more about the Malibu. It’s a great car!
Good idea, now teach periscope to gm’s bean counters.
Ah yes, the standard backup camera. GM really should pat themselves on the back for complying with a federal mandate. /s
Stupid commercial
THIS IS COMPLETE BULLSH*T. There is a left wing political movement that is working to eliminate the private automobile and force us into “public transportation”, i.e. be treated like cattle. It’s called “VISION ZERO’ and every red blooded car loving American should be fighting it tooth and nail.
If GM has sold its soul to the devil by sucking up to them, it will be the architect of its own demise.
All Vision Zero is is a commitment for engineers to take into account automobile and human limits into the design of roads and speed limits. The average car since 2010 has been designed with shock absorbing materials at the front which means that the average human can be hit by a vehicle at 19 miles per hour and still have a chance to survive and be okay as long as the vehicle was designed to meet Vision Zero standards which means the bumper and hood crumple slightly and collapse around human legs, not drive parts of the vehicle into the leg. The second part of Vision Zero is that should municipalities want speed limits higher than 19 miles per hour within their urban areas, that pedestrian walkways and roadways must be separated and properly barricaded to protect pedestrians from being struck by cars. Finally Vision Zero has been around since 1997 long before self driving vehicles and many places in the US such as Dallas, New York, and Chicago as well as other states and even countries have began making their urban areas conform to Vision Zero standards.
TL;DR: They’re not trying to take your cars, just make them safer for everyone.
Stop spending ad dollars on sub brands that nobody cares about. Put that money towards the cars instead! C’mon!
What a cutsey advert.
GM Ceo Mary Barra made 40 million last year, while millions are being evicted.
Think I will buy a Nissan.