I wrote a goofy blog earlier this week about an “officially licensed” Chevrolet shirt that was obviously designed by AI. The tee is on sale at TJ Maxx and Marshall’s right now, and several folks have come across it while shopping. Curious to know if it was indeed a legit piece of Chevy merchandise, I reached out to the automaker’s PR team. They just got back to me and said no, it’s not, and they’ll be taking the appropriate legal action to remove the shirt from stores.
In a nutshell, the shirt does a poor job of portraying the GMT800-generation Silverado with “regular cab,” “extended cab,” and “crew cab” depictions of the truck. The problem is that they all have just two doors, and the only difference is a progressively longer bed in each illustration. Poke fun at Chevrolet all you want, but it certainly knows its pickup truck nomenclature.
“We can confirm that this product did not go through GM’s official licensing approval process and does not meet GM’s licensing standards,” a Chevrolet spokesperson told me. “We are working with our partners to investigate how this product reached retail. We take the proper use of our trademarks seriously and will be taking action as appropriate.”
Huh! What do you know? I hadn’t a clue that my Monday afternoon pastime would become a piece of difference-making journalism. (OK, maybe that’s a stretch.)
In any case, this isn’t nearly as embarrassing for Chevrolet as some of the past snafus we’ve seen. Remember when Ram sold a patriotic t-shirt with an AI-generated Toyota Tacoma on the front? Yeah, that was definitely worse.
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