"Like A Rock" Response

Kyle Smith
Anna Wolff
English 100 A
20 January 2010
Reading Response #2

The Chevrolet truck “Like a Rock” commercial starts out by stating “America is still the land of rugged individualists.” Then it begins to show all kinds of people with their Chevy trucks and all of these people use their truck for a different purpose. Some of the people that this commercial show are men, women, farmers, carpenters and even a well dressed man getting out of his mud encrusted truck but they all depend on their truck. It also shows clips of Chevy trucks driving on rough terrain and carrying heavy loads, trying to prove that these trucks are “like a rock.” These clips are showing similarities between the different people and the Chevy truck serving the purpose that these people need it for. It is hard to tell what a lot of these people are doing but you can tell that they are hard working people and very dependent on their trucks each one in their own unique way. Then this commercials voice over narrator says “every one of them demands something different but they all want the same thing….”

This ad is trying to show that this country is full of hard working “rugged individualists” and that people are still like the pioneers who created this country. Chevrolet wants to show that their trucks have what people need to succeed on their own; if you buy a Chevrolet truck. They give examples of this by showing Americans doing hard work alone with the help of their truck. To understand this commercial you need to have the culture knowledge to understand that this country was created on the belief of rugged individualism. Chevrolet is trying to emphasize that people are still like rugged individualists and unlike some of their other commercial this one includes both men and women trying to further prove that their trucks are perfect all kinds of different purposes. This commercial seems like it would be more effective on people in an older age group. I think this because they can probably better relate to it unlike most younger people who really can’t relate to rugged individualism. People who can relate to this ad it will have more of an effect on them. Because these people understand the ad they will probably think about buying a Chevrolet truck just because they have the cultural understanding that this commercial represents and reinforces.