There were two disastrous problems with Chrysler’s saccharin ‘Imported From Detroit’ spot. The first is, it forgot what it was about. The second was Eminem.
Set aside the inflated self-importance and working class hyperbole. And set aside the grandiose, heroic tone of The Voice, which one would normally associate with a retelling of the grand ideals on which our nation was founded or the human toll of the invasion of Normandy.
The Voice begins with a fine enough question: ‘What does Detroit know about luxury?” We’d be interested to know about that. But then it spends the next two minutes struggling to answer, getting lost in random thoughts and babbling on about things like ‘hard work and know how’ and how ‘the hottest fires make the hottest steel’. Finally, like a confused, drunken Uncle who barely remembers what he’s been talking about, it just gives up with a… ‘Well, more than most.’ Huumph!
This is embarrassing enough. But then comes one last senseless statement: ‘When it comes to luxury, it’s as much about where it’s from as who it’s for.’ Forget whether we agree with that or not (which we don’t). These cars are made in a town that, to quote him, ‘has been to hell and back.’
Then comes the final nonsequitor. Eminem gets out of a car and, as if entering a different commercial, says, ‘This is the motor city and this is what we do’ — without telling tells us what that is. Eminem has loads of cred, but luxury cred isn’t one of them.
Take a good listen, and have a laugh. Then we’ll get to the real unfortunate disaster:
Unfortunately for Chrysler, Super Bowl viewers just saw an animated Eminen in a Brisk Ice Tea spot proclaiming, ‘I get asked to do commercials all the time… Once I try their product I always hate it!’
The real cred question isn’t about how many endorsements celebs can make simultaneously and still give the illusion that they give a damn. Eminem could have done a Brisk spot, a Doritos spot and a Bud spot in the same Super Bowl and it would’ve been fine. But there’s a huge difference between buying a celeb for entertainment and choosing an individual to represent a core value of a brand.
Chrysler made the critical mistake of thinking ‘beverage’ was a non-competing category. We imagine that if they hadn’t already seen it, this spot made a few Chrysler execs poop their shorts.
Agree or disagree? Let us know.
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