The legendary rivalry between General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) – a battle that that has lasted for more than 100 years – has just entered a new chapter with a series of YouTube commercials targeted at Ford’s marquee pick-up trucks.
Specifically, Chevrolet has chosen to highlight one key difference between its Silverado trucks and the F-150 counterpart from Ford: Their trucks are made of high-strength steel, while Ford’s is made of aluminum in an effort to save weight and fuel.
In their latest video released yesterday, Chevrolet enlisted the help of NFL broadcast personality and brand pitchman Howie Long to highlight the extra time and cost it would take to repair Ford’s F-150. In the ad, it cost an average of $1,755 more and took an additional 34 days to fix the F-150 than the Silverado after a simulated accident.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLFe8g7E2sc
In another ad, Chevy used a grizzly bear and two cages – one made of steel, the other aluminum – to illustrate which material you’d turn to in case you’re in danger of getting mauled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIC7Fw1rFF4
It marks a concerted effort by GM to gain an advantage over Ford’s F-series of pick-ups, traditionally the best-selling vehicle in the USA for the last 30 years. Latest figures have shown that they might be gaining ground: Sales of the F-series truck fell 8.9% to 357,180 units for the first six months of 2015, while sales of the Silverado rose 18.4% over the same period, according to USA Today. The pick-up truck segment has become the most profitable segment in the automotive industry, according to Bloomberg.
The two Detroit automakers have been colliding in a vehicle war that dates back to 1908. In Fortune‘s ranking of the greatest business rivalries of all time, the GM-Ford war came out second.