Prelinger Archives: Great New Star (1952)

I chose to watch the film Great New Star, a film from 1952. This is actually a commercial that casted Dinah Shore, a famous American singer to promote a new Chevrolet car.  I was inspired to watch how car advertisements were during the 1950s and it has greatly evolved. The reason why I chose this video was also because it The video first started out with Dinah singing to a song. The film then talks about all the facts and specs of the car. It describes almost every function that is present in the car. For example, design of the car, bumper,  headlights,  steering wheel, break pedal, size of the window, seats and trunk. Even though they did touch on a few detailed specification, but most details mentioned in the commercial are already familiar among people this era. Other than that, we could tell that the people in the film were mostly upper class people. This is because only the rich people can only afford cars at that time. The video then ends with Dinah singing a Chevrolet song again. The total length of this commercial is 14 minutes.

After watching this film, I realized how car commercial has evolved so much since the 1950s. Nowadays, most car commercial would not be longer than 30 seconds. The information mentioned in the video will not exist anymore in our current car advertisement because people are familiar with most of the functions in the car now. The information mentioned in the video is usually printed on papers nowadays, where customers are suppose to read it themselves. People seem to care less about the functions and specs in the car and more of the model. Also, companies depend a lot more on innovation, branding and creative ideas when creating a car advertisement. Advertisement had transformed so much since 1952. My opinion on the advertisements during the 1950s is that it seems to be more informational compared to the advertisements that we have today. The way information is being conveyed has definitely changed a lot.

Here is a link to the video I watch:
https://archive.org/details/GreatNew1952