A Year After Chevy’s Snide Ad Ripping On The Ford F-150, Silverado Sales Are Down

Remember when Chevrolet released that 3-minute ad comparing the bed strength of the aluminum-bodied Ford F-150 against that of its own steel Silverado? The one where bricks and toolboxes are dropped from a height into the unlined beds of each full-size pickup?

That ad is a year old now, and given that, this might be an interesting time to look at the sales figures to see if Chevy’s Ford-bashing advertisement had the sort of customer-stealing impact the automaker had hoped for.

Nope

Chevrolet’s ad, which can be seen above, was released in June, 2016. In the three-month period from then through the end of August last year, the Silverado sold 156,186 units to the Ford F-150’s 203,540 units, equating to market shares of 27.5% and 35.8%, respectively. Over the following three months, September through November, the Silverado’s market share dropped 2.6 percentage points to 24.9%, while the F-150’s rose 0.6 points to 36.4%. All numbers are according to JD Power.

JD Power also claims that Chevrolet’s share in the full-size pickup truck segment then held steady, gaining just 0.1% during the three-month period from December, 2016 through February, 2017, while Ford’s market share leapt up another 1.2%. That put the the two competing trucks at 25.0% versus 37.6% of the market. And finally, from March through the end of May, Silverado sales plummeted to 126,368 units while the F-150 gained still more ground, selling 228,014 units, leading to market shares of 21.6% and 38.9%, respectively.

In fact, since Chevrolet’s truck bed ad was released, sales of the full-size pickup model have slowed enough to allow the RAM 1500 to surpass it in terms of market share. Where the RAM started off with just 20.8% of the market from June through August, 2016 to the Silverado’s 27.5%, by the last three-month period observed (February through May of this year), it had claimed an additional 2.2% of the market while the Chevy lost 5.9%.

What’s more, average transaction prices (ATPs) for the Ford F-150 have only gone up since last year, while incentives have declined. This year through May, F-150 ATPs have increased $3,377 relative to the same period last year – far more than the industry average ($1,582). Incentives have gone down $155 through May versus the same five-month period in 2016, versus a segment average increase of $391.

Ford F-150 buyers don’t even seem keen to hold off on buying until the new, updated version of the truck bows later this year. It all just goes to show that little, if anything, can topple the Ford F-Series from its unbroken 40-year record as the best-selling truck in America.