This year’s General Motors Super Bowl advertisement channels Austin Powers as Dr. EV-il to fight climate change using GM’s Electric Vehicles (EVs)–Hummer and Silverado. The slick commercial shows Dr. EV-il feeling threatened by climate change as it is the top villain on earth. So he uses EVs, obviously from GM, to fight climate change and regain his position as the top villain on earth.
The ad has the inimitable Mike Myers as Dr. EV-il. Rob Lowe, Seth Green and Mindy Sterling also reprise their their original roles from the trilogy from 1997 to 2002. Though comic elements are available, the 60-second ad focuses on an important issue–climate change while promoting GM electric vehicles.
As the villains take over GM’s headquarters in Detroit, Dr EV-il makes plans to take over the world. His henchmen persuade him to fight climate change first as it is “arguably the No. 1 threat to the world now,” Green says. The ad is filled with jokes as well as themes from Austin Powers movies.
The reboot for its Super Bowl 56 commercial has a strong impact as it brings into focus climate change, while cleverly getting a super villain to combat climate change. Hopefully, it can subliminally make us normal humans do our bit to reduce our carbon footprint.
The ad features a range of EVs from GM including
GMC Hummer EV pickup
Ultium-powered EVs
The Hummer SUV
Chevrolet Silverado SUV
Cadillac Lyriq
Brightdrop EV 600 van and
Cadillac concept vehicles.
Deborah Wahl, GM’s chief marketing officer told reporters that the ad’s message extended “beyond a marketing campaign.” She added that they wanted to use the Super Bowl to raise awareness about the role of EVs in fighting climate change and make people see them “in a different way.” She also said that GM would normalize electric vehicles and “help Americans across the country actually see themselves in one.”
Although in an ideal world, we would all love to have an EV, from GM or elsewhere, we can still learn from Dr. EV-il and play a small individual role of hero by decreasing our carbon consumption and thereby move towards sustainability.
