American automotive giant General Motors hopes you will see commercial director Michael Bay's Transformers and fall so madly in love with the Autobots that youll buy one of the models they paid millions to place in the movie.

"Product placement has never been so blatant, and the potential for a global platform to build brand awareness could not have come at a better time for GM," said David Koehler, a clinical marketing professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

This is the sad, sad state that the former iconic brand finds itself in after nearly one hundred years in the business. Whats got GM so down? Earlier this year, Toyota surpassed them in the total number of new car sales worldwide. A company that perhaps not-so-coincidentally has sold more than one million hybrid vehicles to date.

Rather than attempt to compete with the shit that Toyota is bringing GM has done the only sensible thing a good old American company would do in its position: bet on robots that uppercut each other.

You're not going to see the other actors," said Dino Bernacchi, GM's associate director of branded entertainment. "These cars are the stars, literally, in the movie."

Actually, who can disagree with Dino given the movies lackluster carbon-based cast? You could probably replace cars in the quote above with fireballs, debris screaming or slow motion without affecting the veracity of the statement.

GMC has a Camaro, a Pontiac Solstice, a pick up truck called a Top Kick (hey - at least its not named after a tree) and one of the heroes in the picture is "Ratchet", the robot field medic from outer space. He cherishes all life - at least while in robot form. Not so much when he transforms into a GMC Hummer.

Climb up behind the wheel of a hummer and it's you that will be transformed into a giant fucking dildo.

Nowhere on the Hummer website will you find a quote about miles per gallon. Actually, you wont even find it on the sticker in the showroom. Federal law states that vehicles as heavy as the H2 need not publish the miles per gallon they can muster. Generous estimates give the H2 Hummer 13 miles on the highway and 10 in the city.

To be fair Ratchet the Robot turns into an H2 model Hummer. Its the compact one. I assume Autobots dont need to fill up they eat dilithium crystals or something. You however, will need something a little more down to earth to get around in a Hummer. Im am all for buying, and even driving Hummers. This is America. We do whatever we want as a country and you should too. I just think Hummers should be self-service vehicles. And owners should be made not just to pump the gas themselves but they should be forced to actually go get the necessary oil with other would-be Hummerers. After completing basic training its off to some far-off place with black gold under its surface. Then, you will need to refine it into gasoline. Finally, youre ready to drive your Hummerwith whatever you can return to our land with in a single tanker while fending off angry locals - Max Rockatansky-style.

Of the Transformers/GMC relationship Forbes points out:

Those who shell out to see "Transformers" probably aren't all that concerned about free-falling market shares or upcoming union negotiations. They want action, and that's what they're going to get from these GM vehicles.

Fuck yeah! I'll wait for a Gobots movie if I wanted to see a robot named Barabra win a slap fight and then transform into a Vespa. America is going to celebrate the 4th of July like God intended: with powerful, gas chugging GMC vehicles that turn into robots and then kick each other through buildings.

Who cares how many miles per gallon that Hummer will get? (almost none)
Tell us how many punches it will deliver. (+ 4 Vorpal Emissions versus Mother Nature)

Transformers opens every day this week for some reason. I already have my ticket and have begun drinking in preparation. I fully expect to enjoy the wonderful stupidity of it all. If youve already seen the excellent Ratatouille, then by all means - go get suckered into seeing Transformers. Just dont get suckered into buying what the movie is really trying to sell you.

Gerry_D looks forward to the day when a gallon of gas costs more than 5 bucks. It will be a step in the right direction.

SmellsLikeSciFi

Houston, TX

April 2004

JUL 03, 2007 04:10 PM

Edit:

The URL inserter-thingie is broken and not showing the correct address when posted, so go here instead:

FUH2.com

malkav11

Saint Paul, MN

July 2003

JUL 03, 2007 04:22 PM

The funny thing is, I probably won't even notice the product placement because I am so utterly oblivious to the characteristics of cars. I find them among the most boring technological devices on the planet. I can distinguish classes of vehicle and that's about it. (Except for Smartcars, which are adorable.)

Rafi

Santa Monica, CA

January 2003

JUL 03, 2007 04:39 PM

You know, there's product placement as a means to get a film fully financed and produced, and then there's product placement as a commercial displacing the actual film. . .