I'm delighted by this car dealership's parody of 'The Office'

Ben Bushen and Grace Kerber filmed a TikTok for the Chevrolet dealership where they work.

Mohawk Auto Group

• A Chevy dealership has been posting TikToks about its employees in the style of "The Office."
• They're well-executed and charming, showing the bumbling marketing staff's hijinks.
• I will not apologize for enjoying quality marketing content! Sue me!

Forget Season 3 of "The Bear." The workplace drama I'm now highly invested in is from the Mohawk Chevrolet dealership in Ballston Spa, New York.

The dealer's TikTok feed typically features videos you'd expect: information about cars and some introductions to the people who sell them. The three-person marketing team in charge of posting to social media would sometimes try to jump on a TikTok trend or some other kind of lighthearted fare.

So far, nothing out of the ordinary for a car dealership, this one founded in 1919 with the slogan "We go out of our way to please you."

But then, somehow, they made a masterpiece — a mockumentary about the dealership in the style of "The Office."

So far, they've released six parts, but Part 5 is the pinnacle and has gone viral on TikTok:

@mohawkchevrolet

Episode 5 of The Dealership "Lemme drive the rado'"🛻 **Based off a true story #MohawkChevrolet #TogetherLetsDrive #CarBravo #UpstateNY #SaratogaSprings #MaltaNY #BallstonSpa #Chevy #Chevrolet

♬ original sound - Mohawk Chevrolet

Are we suckers for being charmed and amused by a piece of advertising? Sure. But what joy do we have left if we can't smile at the creativity of the small team in the marketing department of a Chevy dealership near Saratoga?

I spoke with the dealership's Nathanael Greklek, Ben Bushen, and Grace Kerber, who starred in the video and were part of its production team.

Their inspiration? Things that actually happened during their workdays, they told me.

Kerber does indeed always want to be the one to drive the trucks whenever they have to move one around the lot. The day before, she and Bushen got stuck making a (nearly) 38-point turn trying to pull a Silverado out of a tight space. And Bushen does tend to get car sick if he's in the passenger seat.

The idea for an "Office" parody came to the team after another coworker did a prank hiding tiny plastic ducks around the dealership, which made the marketing team think it would be good for a video. Bushen, the in-house video editor, is a huge fan of the sitcom and was able to pull off the feel.

That this video was a hit came as a pleasant surprise, they told me. The video has around 1.8 million views, which isn't a mega-hit in TikTok terms, but certainly is way more than a typical local dealer. (In comparison, the official Chevrolet account only has a few videos that have cracked a million views, and those were ones with celebrities like Guy Fieri.)

But is a viral video from a local car dealership actually good for sales?

Kerber told me they don't expect these videos to win over someone whopping for a Honda or a BMW — "If they want a Chevy, they're going to buy a Chevy," she said.

They've gotten comments from people outside the Saratoga area saying they plan to drive hours just to buy from their dealership based on their funny videos. (They also deliver, they let me know.)

"Part of doing these fun videos is it makes people feel like they know you and are comfortable going there, and they love the environment from what they see online, and that's where they might want to get their next car," Kerber said.

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