You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …
The Product:
Chevrolet automobiles … supposedly
The Promotion:
The Pitch:
Buy a Chevy, or Coily the Spring Sprite will get you!
I’m betting many of you have seen this commercial before. I’m also betting that most of you who have seen it had no idea it was a commercial.
This short film gained notoriety when it was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (Season 10, Episode 12: “Squirm”). And if MST3K viewers wondered where it came from, they probably assumed it was an educational film made to be shown in elementary schools. If they did think it was an ad, they probably assumed it was for Big Springs Incorporated or something. But, nope, this was straight up the product of Chevrolet’s sales department.
On the face of it, this ad would seem to have a key flaw: the name Chevrolet is never once mentioned in the film. Not even in the credits. This only becomes explicable as an ad when you remember that it’s from a different time.
Long before MST3K, this film was first seen by the public in the year 1940. Back then, while television sets existed, there wasn’t the TV industry needed for commercials as we know them … but Chevrolet was a bit ahead of the curve in creating their “Direct Mass Selling” campaign. This campaign would create short films promoting Chevrolet, meant to be shown at movie theaters as well as special functions like school assemblies and rotary club meetings.
Thing is, unlike with what television would later become, patrons of movie theaters and rotary clubs weren’t being given a free piece of entertainment with a few ads spliced in to cover the cost. They had already paid their dues, so if you wanted them to sit through an eight minute piece of advertising, it had better not look like a piece of advertising. It had better look like a piece of general interest edutainment – one that highlights the good features a car provides, sure, but with only very subtle (almost subliminal) product placement for Chevy.
“A Case of Spring Fever” is one of many such films Chevy commissioned from 1935 to 1942, though its connection to Chevrolet is definitely more oblique than most. Of course, when shown at assemblies or club meetings, there would likely have been someone there in person explaining that the film was provided to them by Chevy, so it wasn’t quite the anti-advertisement it seems when seen now, out-of-context.