So is Chevy Apprentice contest already working for the Tahoe?

I heard something in passing the other day that surprised me. It was a show previewing Mission Impossible 3, and it was mentioned that despite Tom Cruise's bizarre behavior last year (remember his Oprah appearance, not doing much publicity for War of the Worlds), that War of the Worlds was actually the biggest box-office hit of his career.

This suprised me because the movie itself wasn't very good, IMO. But when you think about the media exposure that Tom Cruise was getting last year, it makes sense. Many people probably thought 'Everyone is talking about Tom Cruise this, Tom Cruise that, TomKat this, TomKat that, wonder what all the fuss is about?', and decided to see WOTW as a result.

Any publicity is good publicity, I guess.

Remembering this story, I went over to WhatsNext, where BL is still going on about how Chevy, SUVs, Chevy Apprentice, and Dick Cheney all suck. Since the contest began last month, I decided to take BL's advice and Google Chevy Tahoe, but instead I wanted to see what happened to the Tahoe's sales last month.

It seems they did quite well, thank you very much, increasing 20 percent:

Retail sales fell 17 percent compared to strong year-ago deliveries, and fleet sales tumbled 5 percent.

But the Cadillac Escalade and Chevrolet Tahoe, two of the models the automaker is counting on to help revamp its ailing North American operations, posted double-digit sales gains.

So what does this prove? Honestly, not much. But it does suggest that the negative Chevy Apprentice ads that users submitted aren't going to kill the brand, and if anything, the extra attention that the buzz surrounding the contest generated has likely INCREASED sales.

Let's look at this logically. If you want to buy an SUV, the odds are that negative ads from the anti-SUV aren't going to change your mind, because you have likely already heard their arguments.

But what you WILL remember is that you heard a fuss surrounding the Chevy Tahoe. So when you go to shop for SUVs, if you don't have a particular model in mind, you are probably going to give your first look to the model you are most familiar with. At this point, you go back to 'well I remember hearing about that contest that the Chevy Tahoe was running, let's see what the deal is with them'.

In another couple of weeks we should find out what the sales for April were for the Tahoe. If they are up again(Especially considering the rising cost of gas.), I think we can safely say that the Chevy Apprentice contest, negative ads and all, has likely increased sales, at least short term.

Any publicity is good publicity, I guess.