Chevy Says Its Silverado Is ‘The Official Truck of Real People.’ Really?

Where would we be without advertising to help us make sense of the world and our place in it?

In the above TV commercial for its 2019 Silverado truck, Chevrolet answers the existential question, what does it mean to be a real person? A real person has calloused hands, a real person rolls up their sleeves, a real person never backs down and, perhaps most important of all, a real person drives a Chevrolet Silverado.

“The all-new Chevy Silverado, the strongest, most advanced Silverado ever,” the gravelly voiced narrator says at the end of the ad. “It’s the official truck of real people.”

Come down, Chevy, we can barely see you so high on your perch. But while most of the claims in the commercial, including the official truck of real people bit, fall within the confines of puffery (aka a marketer’s right to lie), there is one statement that carries real meaning as it were and that Chevy should arguably have substantiation for.

At around the 20-second mark, as a woman dressed for the office is seen pulling out of her driveway, the narrator says the Silverado is “the official truck of getting to work.”

Unlike some of the other claims in the commercial, I’d argue this one can be proven. This is because it implies that the Silverado has the attributes of a commuter vehicle (good gas mileage, a comfortable cabin, plenty of storage, etc.) and that those attributes have been acknowledged in an official capacity. Is this the case?

I reached out to Chevy for an answer. No word yet from the automaker.

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