New Jeep TV ad: thoughts?

[bigwalton]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISJzi...layer_embedded

I'll wait to share my thinking. You can check here to see what some marketing folks are saying:

Linky to discussion

[yodabob]

Can't say I care for it. With me, Jeeps are more about outdoor imagery so a bunch of clocks does nothing for me. Now if you condensed that down to make the point about clock watching and then showed a ride home from work that required a Jeep, then I think you're on to something.

[twmattox]

It could very easily be a Harley commercial... Corvette commercial... or Hot Air Balloon commercial with the simple replacement of the Jeep logo. I understand what they are trying to do...but Jeeps are more about outdoor freedom and less about non-conformity IMHO.

[Cincyjeeprs]

You live up there. Go over to GH and straighten them out.

The commercial looks like the first of a serial. Lets hope so. I get it, sort of, but it doesn't stand on its own very well.

[Kaiser8]

Its terrible. Looks like some post apocalyptic scene with still functioning appliances but no humans.
I guess this is what the .gov thinks is good ad work.

Post 1,000.

[bigwalton]

Originally Posted by twmattox

It could very easily be a Harley commercial... Corvette commercial... or Hot Air Balloon commercial with the simple replacement of the Jeep logo.

Winner winner chicken dinner!!!

Bingo, that's EXACTLY the problem with it. There is absolutely NOTHING about this that is "Jeep".

"Ride" is passive. I have never, once, done anything in my Jeeps that I would call "ride".

I just posted this a bit ago on the Jeep Facebook page:

-----
Dear Jeep,

I love Jeep. I have since I was a kid. "Jeep" stirs a passion deep in me and my Jeeps bring that out every day. I own nothing but Jeeps a JK, LJ and CJ-8.

I love my Jeeps, I love Jeep people, I love Jeep gatherings/outings, I love the feel of my Jeeps, I love that there are so many people passionate about Jeeps like I am, I love the brand, I love the concept, I love the freedom......

This deep love of Jeep is why I have to say I hate your new ad: "Time"

I DRIVE my Jeeps. I CHALLENGE my Jeeps. I ENJOY my Jeeps. I ESCAPE IN my Jeeps. I WHEEL my Jeeps. But ride????

Unlike a bike, with a motor vehicle, "ride" is passive. Ride is boring, dull, uninteresting, uninvigorating. Even my 4 year old daughter doesn't "ride" in the Jeeps we "Drive daddy's big Jeep" or "Drive mommy's yellow Jeep" or "Drive daddy's silver Jeep". It's as if you're telling people to get their friends to buy a Jeep so that they can sit shotgun and ride while their friend drives, challenges, enjoys, escapes in, and wheels the Jeep.

Tell me how Chevy or Harley or Land Cruiser couldn't use this exact ad, with their brand and name? Why is this "Jeep"?

From a deeply devoted and very disappointed Jeep owner.

[bigwalton]

Originally Posted by Kaiser8

Its terrible. Looks like some post apocalyptic scene with still functioning appliances but no humans.

That is great... too funny

[Randyzzz]

Dang, Eric....sheer eloquence, you hit the nail on the head.

First view I liked the commercial, thinking "any time without the Jeep is just "passing time", and watching the clock until I can be in my Jeep again." But the more times I watched the commercial, the more I didn't like it. It doesn't appeal to the lifestyle of Jeep...it's just another product commercial.

[mssldn]

How do you take something so fun and make it so boring?

[Bugman]

Eric summed it up in one word..."Passion". I kept going back to that word after every description everybody made. AND that is the tiny ingredient lacking in the commercial. But good God how do you show the crazy things we do, and put up with, in our Jeeps to show that passion? Ohhhh maybe just a few million ways from holes in the floors to no tops in snowstorms, all with a big grin on our face!

[yodabob]

Originally Posted by Bugman

Eric summed it up in one word..."Passion". I kept going back to that word after every description everybody made. AND that is the tiny ingredient lacking in the commercial. But good God how do you show the crazy things we do, and put up with, in our Jeeps to show that passion? Ohhhh maybe just a few million ways from holes in the floors to no tops in snowstorms, all with a big grin on our face!

I agree. They need the add with the guy driving in the rain with no top and a big grin on his face. This was me the summer before last. I left the restaurant after dinner with German colleagues and they stood on the restaurant porch and watched in dismay as I drove home in a topless Jeep in the pouring rain. I heard about that one for months. Still makes me smile to think of their reaction. What could I say? It's a Jeep thing.

[bigwalton]

I can think of three things I'd do for Jeep ads.

Jeep wave.

I'd show old Jeeps, go back to WWII footage, all the way through the CJs, YJs, TJs. Just show what people do with them, no "selling" necessary.

Camp Jeep. What other brand of verhicle has anything like that? Interview attendees, find some long distance drivers that came.... one Camp Jeep would keep you in commercials for at least a year.

[Truck]

Eric,

Put your advertiser's clothes on make a clip/story board and go pitch it to them. Obviously they need to fire their current folks.

Truck

[Bugman]

Include The Jeeper's Jamboree where people from all over the world have come to film and document the trip. I like the wave! Years ago I used to sell Jeeps and I never told them about the wave they were about to get. I got a lot of calls. The history of the Jeep in WWII is important as well, I wonder if that might be the underlying reason that Daimler sold them (hee hee). What about Moab. the Jeep Scrambles, and any number of destinations for wheeling around the country, and how many businesses they're keeping open in these areas? How many search and rescue teams and other emergency agencies are utilizing Jeeps? Talk about creating jobs?! A benefit from all the exposure that Chrysler could create with this type of advertisement would be for more people to be aware of "Jeeping" and just MAYBE the bureaucrats wont be so quick to shut down so many trails without taking a closer look. O K, I'll get off my soap box now. My mind kind of took off on me.

[bigwalton]

Right on bugman... with all this low-hanging friut in terms of ideas, HOW ON EARTH do they come to this garbage??