From an article dissecting the Chevy commercial - "Majoros insists that the “real people” really are real (save the moderator, actor Potsch Boyd). While the company obviously edits footage to “tell the best story,” the participants don’t know what brand they’re interacting with when they show up, and the reactions on screen are genuine. Chevy’s recruiters do try and find folks who are “emotive” and “expressive,” as well as within the target demographic of the ad. “When you have stimuli that is inextricably linked to the product message, it elicits feedback that we don’t need to script or stage,” Majoros said.

The large car elevator in the company’s recent spots is one example of such “stimuli.” Majoros said that commercial was filmed in a hangar in Tustin, California, where they used a stage to obscure the cars queued up below participants’ feet, ready to be brought aloft. “Chevrolet has a series of brand values, and one of the brand values is authenticity,” he said. “So what you don’t see from Chevrolet is a lot of CGI wizbangery. We are about real things. But it has to be dramatic!”

When I gently brought up the notion that some people seem to find the ads smarmy, exactly the opposite of what an ad campaign based on real peoples’ opinions might be aiming for, Majoros pointed out that Chevy’s audiences’ testing has demonstrated measurable, positive effects from the ads. It’s fitting: Commercials about market research are going to also be the product of market research. “On the bell curve you have your haters and your lovers,” Majoros said. “It’s like gymnastic scoring. Throw out the high, throw out the low, and see how the masses are reacting.”"