Chevy's World Series Spot Reverses 'Throw Like A Girl' Stereotypes

Chevrolet, the official vehicle of Major League Baseball, activated its rights at this year’s World Series with a new campaign revolving around little league and girl power.

Led by the astonishing skills and achievements of 13-year-old baseball star Mo’ne Davies – who wowed fans and the baseball world with her incredible performance in last summer’s Little League World Series.

The campaign is led by a 60-second spot, debuting during World Series Game 1, which pays homage to Davis’ talent, determination, background and success.

‘I throw 70 miles an hour,’ Davis says in the spot. ‘That’s throwing like a girl.’

The ad closes with the tagline:

‘Chevrolet celebrates Mo’ne Davis…and those who remind us that anything is possible.’

The commercial was edited from hours of footage produced by director Spike Lee and his DDB-backed Spike DDB is Chevrolet agency of record.

There flagship TV work is supported by a 16-minute branded-content documentary – again written and directed by Lee –

which is hosted on Chevy’s website and YouTube channel, and on Lee’s website.

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Chevy certainly seems to have learned some lessons from last year’s Boston-based World Series ‘Chevy Strong’ fiasco (see previous case study).

In fact, this new approach to its baseball activation sees Chevrolet tap into a new type of Americana and a fresh perspective on sporting excellence.

‘Very few brands could tell the story on that stage and in as credible a fashion as Chevy can,’ comments Steve Majoros (an advertising and marketing director for Chevy).

‘It’s a nice, natural fit for us with the story and the magical summer [Davis] had. To have someone like [Lee] on our marketing roster, who’s a natural and intuitive storyteller, tell the story more richly and deeply was an opportunity that we couldn’t pass up.’

Interestingly, Chevy’s two-year-old ‘Find New Roads’ umbrella tagline is absent from this new campaign and there are no obvious Chevy vehicles within the ad except a very brief product flash at the very end of the video.

Yet the brand’s marketers believe that the story is such a powerful vignette of its ‘Find New Roads’ big idea that overt taglines and obvious product placement is simply not necessary.

This new World Series campaign is an addition to a rich set of baseball activations that include ‘The Chevrolet Home Run Derby’, sponsoring the All-Star Game and World Series MVP awards ‘Chevrolet Youth Baseball’ and ‘Diamonds & Dreams’, as well as cause-led charity fundraising campaigns led by MLB’s ‘The Boys & Girls Clubs of America’ and ‘Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI)’ program.

From backyards to big leagues, Chevrolet has a strong baseball heritage as it partners with all aspects of the sport in order to create an American heartland platform to showcase its brand and its vehicles.

Indeed, back in the 1970s Chevy’s ads included a ‘Baseball, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet’ jingle as the brand sought to align itself with American tradition.

The auto giant first became the Official Vehicle of Major League Baseball in 2005 and in late 2011 it extended its deal for a further five years.

This Chevy work and the message have a strong echo of June 2014’s campaign from Always – ‘Like A Girl’.

This campaign took the form of a social experiment led by a powerful vox pop style video showing how young women and girls are affected by gender stereotyping and revolving around exploring what the phrase ‘like a girl’ means to women of all ages.

Emerging from a survey which found the start of puberty and their first period mark the lowest moments in confidence for girls and how harmful words can add to this, the campaign was shot by award-winning documentary filmmaker Lauren Greenfield and conducted as a social experiment into how people interpret the phrase ‘like a girl’.

The objective was to shed light on changes to perceptions of gender that happen in puberty and how society has unacceptable come to accept ‘like a girl’ phrases as common insults.

While older girls fulfil the negative stereotype about the phrase, younger girls (aged five to 13) they feel the phrase means strong running and fearless kicking.

The conclusion is that at some point during puberty what ‘throw like a girl’ changes from a simple statement to an insult.