Dive Summary:
- For what seems to be the first time, the smart grid is on prime time TV in a GMC Sierra truck commercial (see below) that references the Hoover Dam power plant and its use of smart grid technology.
- Intelligent Utility's Kathleen Wolf Davis spoke to Sandra Moore, GMC’s director of advertising, about why the smart grid is prominently featured in its commercial. “Well, we needed to do something that set us apart from ‘the truck tribe,’ as it were. There are a lot of truck ads on roads and such. We wanted to focus on the engineering of the Sierra instead and align the truck with a technology that helps us tell the story in an unconventional way,” she said.
From the article:
Since the commercial itself had only been running a week when we spoke, Sandra didn’t have any feedback to share just yet, although she did mention that there were a lot of internal comments, almost all very positive.
“Our Sierra owners and advocates dig into research,” she added. “This is a nice tie-in to that. It’s a smarter way of doing things, and this will drive those people to do research in that area.”
I guess it makes sense, after all, that the first smart grid pop culture reference would still be tied a bit to the academic (and research). It’s still a fascinating evolution from unheard of tech-head industry concept to commercial reference in less than a decade, and I’m curious as to what will come next for smart grid. A fizzy soda commercial mention? A throw-off remark on “Hawaii Five-O” instead of “60 Minutes”?
