NASCAR driver takes unsuspecting car salesman on test drive to remember in Pepsi PR stunt
By Rich Leigh on Sunday, March 17, 2013
Uploaded last week, I’ve been meaning to post this since first spotting it.
NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon visited a car dealership where, armed with a disguise, cameras on the car, in his glasses and a Pepsi Max ‘can cam’, the professional driver took an unsuspecting car salesman on a test drive (in a Chevrolet Camaro) to remember.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5mHPo2yDG8
What happens next is absolutely brilliant. The video has had more than 23m views at the time of writing, proving that there’s still huge mileage in secret camera PR stunts.
The end line – ‘Pepsi Max – a zero calorie cola in disguise’ just about ties it in. Just about.
UPDATE
The video has since been outed as having been fake – I know, how dare marketers fib in return for promotion, right? – with the author of this piece on Jalopnik going as
far as calling the car salesroom, to be told they’re unable to talk about the video but that the salesman was ‘unavailable.
Here are a few other points Travis Okulski made (and a pointer to marketers that if you’re going to fake something, the minor details count):
- The car on the lot has an ’09’ sticker on the windshield, but there wasn’t a Camaro made in 2009 (the first was made in 2010). The car has a built-in sat nav, which didn’t appear until 2013
- The helpfully-placed cupholder used to hold the Pepsi can cam doesn’t exist in a new Camaro
- During the entire drive, there isn’t one shot of Jeff Gordon driving the car. According to this post, racer Brad Noffsinger, who works with the Richard Petty Driving Experience, did the stunt work for the production
- There are skid marks ‘like repeated burnouts’ were done, consistent with a number of takes (as below)
