I just about wet myself the other night watching the spot during the Super Bowl. Very gutsy that Chrysler would spend God knows how much to run a 2 minute spot that could only run … during halftime in a single football game. After watching I had tears in my eyes and was about to run out and buy a Chrysler 300.
But reviewing it today a couple of nits. Clint Eastwood does not have the Detroit cred of Eminem, even though “I’ve seen a lot of tough eras, a lot of downturns in my life.” (I wondered if he actually was born in the Motor City and looked it up. No: San Francisco, CA.) And honestly as the spot began I was thinking it was a Clint Eastwood voice imitator (he was there but in shadows) and by the time he showed up I was almost irritated that it really was Clint. And of course the parallel to the Hal Riney “It’s morning in America” Reagan ad was a distraction for anyone who remembered.
The observation that “the fog of division, discord, and blame made it hard to see what lies ahead” was also a calculated risk on timing which I think misfired. Carl Rove says that’s a political attack which is for sure protesting too much. The producers were simply going for a chord of empathy, assuming we would be in the midst of hard times when they made the spot but the economy seems to be looking up so it doesn’t ring true for at least one viewer.
So, I still prefer Eminem’s spot last year. But I still think I will buy a Chrysler in the form of that little Fiat that morphs into a giant woman dressed in red and black in another Super Bowl spot.