• by Karl Greenberg , November 5, 2010

Chevrolet today launches a new ad push for its Silverado Heavy Duty pickup truck that looks under the hood and plays with the competition. The campaign lionizes the truck's Duramax Diesel engine and Allison transmission with two characters named "Max" and "Al."

In the campaign, via Detroit-based Campbell-Ewald, "Max" (Patrick Warburton from "Seinfeld" and "Rules of Engagement," and "Al" (Craig Robinson from "The Office" and "Last Comic Standing") embody the Duramax/Allison powertrain in TV ads and a new Web site, MaxandAl.com.

The TV ads, which break this weekend on NASCAR and cable programming, show the two guys walking around construction and job sites carrying things that only a super-duty pickup could handle. The ads poke fun at competitor Ford F-250 HD, particularly targeting the fact -- implicitly -- that Ford's Powerstroke diesel is now made in-house, rather than at Navistar International. In the ads, an infant in a pink onesie -- an incongruous sight in the midst of various hard-hat sites -- embodies Ford's Powerstroke.

One ad has Max and Al carrying a gigantic pallet of 2 x 4s between them when, in the middle of the building site, they see a baby girl on a bouncer. "What's this all about?" asks Max. "She's Ford Powerstroke; she's new to this kind of thing," says Al. The two stand there holding the pallet and bantering about how they have over 20 million miles of experience while "she hasn't proven herself yet." A similar spot has them carrying four or five gigantic steel I-beams.

The ads direct viewers to what is really the centerpiece of the campaign, MaxandAl.com. The site is a virtual "man cave" mountain lodge where Max and Al live with a pet bull (as opposed to a pit bull), a fireplace and a fridge stocked with motor oil. The site has a long-form video in which the two guys recline by the fire and drink motor oil as if it were beer, while reminiscing about their automotive exploits together as an engine/transmission team. Then they get a call to do work that requires the truck and they disappear down fire station-type poles into the truck's inner workings.

The site also delves into the truck's fully boxed frame, durability, and towing and payload capacity and lets people send e-cards to those who drive competitive trucks. A mobile application allows fans to share "smack talk" videos, where Max and Al explain the differences between Silverado HD and its competitors.

Michael Stelmaszek, group creative director at Campbell-Ewald, says the campaign reflects what heavy-duty truck owners actually do socially: poke fun at each other's vehicles. "Truck guys have this kind of debate with one another all the time. And they are well-informed consumers. You can look at it as a bit of an inside joke."

The Max and Al campaign is an adjunct to a concurrent ad campaign for Silverado HD -- also via Campbell Ewald -- that takes a much more traditional approach to illuminating the inner workings of the vehicle, showing how the Allison/Duramax combo works in real-world situations. Stelmaszek says Chevy was able to do the Al and Max effort because of launch timing, with Silverado HD the third to roll out heavy duty trucks after Ford and Dodge.

"There's an advantage in arriving last, and having the last card to play," he says. "'Max and Al' is intended as a tactical, supplemental ad campaign. Knowing the audience for this truck as we do, we perceived it as a chink in their armor that Ford brought the Powerstroke in-house. This audience knows Ford's ads and their all brand-new engines. Max and Al is a tactical play -- we want to make some noise."

In addition to the three 30-second ads and the long-form video, there are also "Al and Max" Twitter feeds, a Facebook tab, and there will be a game and mobile app. "There are going to be many pieces of this, so broadcast is really meant to drive people online," says Stelmaszek. "This is just the beginning. We are going to see where it goes."