TriShield

Where was Ford this year?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HV6iWZaZQQ

Imported from Detroit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHd3N3wiH2Q

Status

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCaCNz0Vml8

Dude

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1b4jnHJo4Q

Transformers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDpYZY1WN-U

Discovery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwgJzNHvJ-c

Tommy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFFWGT_GzYo

Misunderstanding

TriShield

Gritty Chrysler Super Bowl Commercial Generates Controversy, Traffic Spike



Published Feb 8, 2011

Just the Facts:

•Edmunds.com reports that traffic for the Chrysler brand overall shot up on its site in the hours after Eminem's "Imported From Detroit" Super Bowl commercial ran on Sunday.

•But the ad is generating its share of controversy, including a rant from guest host Mark Steyn on Rush Limbaugh's syndicated radio show on Monday.

•Steyn said that the "slick, high-style ad takes $9 million of taxpayer money
to tell us a ruined city...is the model for America in the 21st century."

SANTA MONICA, California — Edmunds.com said Chrysler's Super Bowl ad, a gritty portrayal of the Motor City featuring Eminem and the Chrysler 200, triggered a "significant" spike in traffic on its Web site in the hours after the commercial aired. But the two-minute "Imported From Detroit" ad is also generating plenty of controversy, including a nasty rant from a guest host on the Rush Limbaugh show on Monday.

Edmunds.com said that site traffic for Chrysler, Volkswagen and Chevrolet "saw the most significant spikes after their ads ran during Super Bowl XLV. The traffic spikes represent important returns on investment for companies that reportedly spent as much as $3 million on a 30-second ad spot during the big game."

"Traffic for the Chrysler brand overall shot up 267 percent on Edmunds.com in the hours after the commercial aired, including a 1,619-percent spike for the Chrysler 200," said Edmunds.com in a statement.

But the Chrysler ad — which not only hawks the Chrysler 200 but is an ode to the redemption of American industry — is clearly polarizing.

Mark Steyn, the guest host on Monday's Rush Limbaugh show, said the "slick, high-style ad takes $9 million of taxpayer money to tell us a ruined city...is the model for America in the 21st century."

He also referred to Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne's verbal misstep over the weekend in describing the "shyster" interest rates on federal bailout loans. Steyn described American taxpayers as "loan sharks" or underworld usurers in the eyes of Chrysler.

Chrysler has not said how much it paid for the two-minute ad that aired during the third quarter of the game. Nor did it say if the ad dollars came from federal loans.

Steyn also dismantled the Motor City and its portrayal in the ad. "I was impressed that he (Eminem) could find a theater that's not been reduced to rubble in Detroit." The Chrysler ad ends with the hip-hop star entering the Fox Theater in Detroit, one of the city's upscale landmarks. Steyn also said that some of Detroit's black mayors had "cannibalized" the city and noted that "one in two citizens (of Detroit) are illiterate. That's about the same rate as the Ivory Coast."

The controversy over his comments fueled debate on Detroit radio stations on Tuesday, with WJR-AM's talk show host Frank Beckmann noting that General Motors advertises on the Rush Limbaugh Show. WJR-AM runs the Rush Limbaugh show in the noon-to-3 p.m. time slot Monday through Friday.

Steyn's Web site fielded complaints from angry Michigan residents, including one who described himself as a 33-year-old male from the Detroit suburbs. "I am sure that your rhetoric is great for ratings (but done) at the expense of Detroit," he wrote.

Inside Line says: Love it or hate it, the Chrysler Super Bowl ad has been a model of how to successfully generate buzz. — Anita Lienert, Correspondent

redbadss

iTrader: (4)

I personally loved the Chrysler commercial. It had an edge to it with eminem. It had a patriotic message in supporting Motor City. And it encouraged the buying of products made in our country.

NJNETSFAN

iTrader: (15)

I couldn't agree more. Not only did the Chrysler ad make me want to know more about the 200, but it also focused that the detroit big 3 are offering some really good cars right now.

CranMaro99

iTrader: (10)

I love how Steyn complains that the company used taxpayer money for the ad. Well it already has been shown that interest (via website visits spiking) increased because of the ad.

Then why is he complaining? The company will probably make more sales (short term I'd assume) and that is because of the ad. Spend money to make money.

Would he be more angry if Chrysler didn't spend money on that cool advertisement, and their sales plummeted in return? In the end that would really waste taxpayer money.

AznMuscle

iTrader: (7)

That Detroit commercial was my favorite. I seriously got goose bumps watching it with the choir in the background and the patriotism.

Detoxx03

iTrader: (14)

As a Detroit native i'm partial to the Eminem/Chrysler commercial. I love GM but I love my city more.

TriShield

The Nielsen Company has counted the numbers from last weekend's Super Bowl and determined that General Motors' "Wild Ride" Chevrolet Camaro commercial (its official name is "Miss Evelyn") has become the most-watched ad of all time with an estimated 119,628,000 viewers. The new viewership record beat the old one set by a Doritos commercial during last year's big game that was seen by 116,231,920 viewers.

The crazy thing is that the old record was beaten by every ad that made this year's top ten most viewed list, which in addition to the Camaro commercial also included ads for the Chevy Cruze, Chrysler 200 and Bridgestone tires. Credit not only the quality of this year's Super Bowl commericals, but also an excellent game of pigskin that got better with each passing quarter. The Camaro commercial, for instance, got a boost from appearing during the fourth quarter when the game was anything but decided.

Nielsen is also reporting that Volkswagen's "The Force" ad starring Max Page as Darth Vader was this year's 'best-liked' commercial during the Super Bowl. The top ten list for most liked Super Bowl commercials was also littered with car-related ad, but curiously, the top ten 'most-recalled' ads didn't feature a single automotive spot.

TriShield

The Super Bowl Commercial That Everyone Is Talking About Almost Didn't Happen


Chrysler's ad featuring Eminem was one of the most popular from Super Bowl XLV (YouTube).

Posted: Feb 08, 2011
by: David Kiley

Over the past decade, rap legend Eminem has been approached over 100 times to license his classic "Lose Yourself." Up until now, he has refused all bidders, turning down millions of dollars along the way, according to Joel Martin, who controls the Eminem music catalog and has one-third of the writing credit on the song.

But that was until Chrysler chief marketing officer Olivier Francois started selling Martin on how much he wanted the music, and how he had an idea to show off Detroit to the Super Bowl audience, the largest TV audience of the year. To seal the deal, Francois drove a new Chrysler 200 to Martin's office in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale a few days into the New Year. The car was fresh off of the assembly line in neaby Sterling Heights, and hadn't even gone on sale. Francois had Martin and Eminem (whose real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III) drive the car, as well as a new Chrysler 300, to try and get the music legend to play ball.

"The 200 was like $18,000 and felt like a BMW... We were really impressed," says Martin, who told AOL Autos they agreed to take millions of dollars less than what they had been previously offered in order to be part of the Chrysler ad. "[It was] about 20 percent of what we could have gotten from someone else," he said.

Martin said the idea for the ad that would show Detroit for what it really is, from hard working people to the abandoned buildings, as well as the art and music scene, appealed to them. "The script they showed us was like nothing I had ever seen before," he said, "and Marshall felt the same way."

But he and Eminem had doubts about both the idea and the slogan written by Wieden & Kennedy, the ad agency based in Portland, Oregon. They didn't think "Imported From Detroit" would make it through the bureaucracy at Chrysler. To them, it sounded like one of those ideas that a company gets ginned up about, but then kills for being to crazy and bold. "We just didn't think it was going to fly," said Martin.

The first phase was allowing Chrysler to use the song (though not the lyrics) for a press conference at the North America International Auto Show in Detroit on January 11. Composer Luis Resto, who has the third credit on the song, actually came to Detroit's Cobo Hall and played the music live to go with Francois' presentation. Though the Super Bowl ad deal was not in place yet, Martin and Resto did not charge for the auto show usage. "We were into something pretty interesting, so we wanted to see where it was going," says Resto, who agreed to make some changes to the music based on what Francois was asking for -- an unusual role for the CEO of an auto maker brand to play.

In the week following the auto show, more negotiations about a Super Bowl ad continued. When Eminem eventually agreed to not only have the music be used in the commercial, but to appear in it as well, Francois was on the west coast at a press junket. He had to rush back to Detroit and start overseeing the shooting the ad the week of January 23 -- just two weeks before the game. It would show Detroit at its grayest and grimmest.

Which car would be used in the ad? The whole idea of the ad is to position Chrysler as a legitimate luxury brand. But the Chrysler 200 has a starting price under $20,000, and it has not enjoyed terrific reviews in the press. It was adapted from the Chrysler Sebring, a much-derided model that had questionable styling and a sub-par interior. While the new 200 is vastly improved, perhaps the more obvious choice to star in the Super Bowl ad alongside Eminem would have been the Chrysler 300 sedan. This is a first-class redesign of a well-loved product that reaches a fully optioned sticker price of around $46,000. The problem is that the 300 is built in Brampton, Ontario. Though not far from Detroit, Chrysler felt it could not launch the new brand idea to a Super Bowl audience with a car built in Canada.

Even after settling on the car and getting Eminem's full involvement, there were a few more wrinkles to iron out. The NFL had not allowed two-minute ads, establishing a limit of 90-seconds. The script, which called for taking viewers through numerous images of the city of Detroit and winding up at the Fox Theatre with Eminem and a local African-American choir, required two minutes to be told properly, Francois believed.

Then there was the iced tea issue. Eminem was appearing in another Super Bowl ad -- sort of. Months before, Eminem had agreed to have a claymation image of himself star in a Lipton Brisk iced tea ad. The script calls for the clay Eminem to act like a diva, complaining about the demands of doing a commercial, and how he insists in shooting in his own house so he doesn't have to go anywhere, and records his own songs. When a claymation corporate executive in the ad tells him he can't rename the product, the rap star shoves him off the roof of the building. Ouch.

The ad was anything but serious, and would be juxtaposed against the much more earnest message from Chrysler. It would also mean that Chrysler would no longer be unique in using Eminem. "We felt so strongly about the idea and script that we looked right past it," said Francois.

It paid off. "Chrysler 200" was the number two search term on Super Bowl Sunday on Google, beating out the Black Eyed Peas, the band that performed during halftime. Search traffic for the Chrysler 200 on AOL Autos was 685 percent higher than normal on Monday and it topped all vehicle searches on AOL's Autoblog.com. NBC Nightly News did a feature on the ad. And a poll conducted by auto industry trade weekly Automotive News, which asked readers to rank all the auto ads in the big game, chose the Chrysler ad by a long-shot, with more than 40 percent choosing it by Tuesday after the game. At publication, the ad had received over five million viewings on YouTube, a number that will likely grow, as Chrysler was one of the only advertisers not to make their commercial available before the game.

"In a way, the Brisk ad kind of set up the Chrysler ad because the character talks about why he never does ads," said Martin.

Indeed, Eminem had appeared in an Apple iTunes ad several years ago, though it was just to promote the iTunes release of a greatest hits album. Apple, says Martin, asked to use "Lose Yourself" to promote the whole Apple product line. Eminem and Martin turned down Apple and its celebrity CEO Steve Jobs.

"The city of Detroit is really important to Marshall," says Martin. "Two years ago, Marshall was down for the count, and he understands what Chrysler is trying to do," says the rapper's partner, referring to the extremely poor reception of his 2009 album "Relapse," which was released after a five year hiatus.

That was the same year that Chrysler was forced into bankruptcy and accepted a bailout from the Federal government to stay in business. "I felt very strongly about this piece of music and Eminem," says Francois. "I don't believe in using celebrities and famous people just for the sake of it... Their story has to make sense in the story of the ad."

Francois was born in France, and has been running the marketing for Fiat in Europe, as well as the overall business of the Lancia brand in Europe. His job in the U.S. is similar, running all marketing for Chrysler, as well as all the business of the Chrysler brand. As a foreigner, and only a part-time resident in the Detroit area, his interest in the city's plight and story ironically runs deeper in some ways than auto industry executives who have spent their whole career around the city.

Eminem has been doing more publicity and promotion work in support of his latest album, "Recovery," with the National Hockey League, video game company Activision, and Pepsi, which markets Brisk. He is also performing on this weekend's Grammy awards show, where he has eleven nominations, the most of any artist. But his anthem, "Lose Yourself," is only going to be used for Chrysler. The ad will run in shorter versions on other TV broadcasts.

Advertising Age magazine referred to Eminem as "the comeback story of the year," which is another association Francois would like to see for Chrysler, as well as the City of Detroit.

ThisBlood147

The Super Bowl ads were stellar, particularly the Chrysler Detroit spot. But I have to say, I'm rather disturbed about the recent trend of "in-program" advertisement spots that have popping up in weekly prime time TV shows as of late. I watched an episode of Bones recently that had a rather blatant product placement plug for the new Prius, and I've also seen recent episodes of a couple of other shows that pulled this same tactic with the Volt and Camaro. I mean, I'm all for seeing the latest rides making an appearance in primetime television, but when the characters in the show start making verbal comments about the cars' features and/or how great it is........it definitely cheapens the entertainment. I watch enough commercials during this time of day as it is. I don't want to start having to watch more DURING the actual program.

I do get it....some of these automakers (GM in particular) are throwing **** tons of marketing money everyone's way to try and saturate the public's product awareness, but it's going to wear out its welcome rather quickly if they do it too much. I've only witnessed about 4 instances of this so far in the last couple of weeks and I'm sick of it already.

TriShield

Chrysler "Imported From Detroit" Clothing Line Sold Out



By Mike Magrath | February 16, 2011

Following the hugely popular Eminem / Chrysler 200 ad spot, Chrysler jumped into the branded clothing business with a line of t-shirts with a stylized Chrysler emblem and the phrase, "Imported from Detroit." And people have moved on them. The shirts are already sold out.

When was the last time Chrysler could say this about their cars? Maybe this is what the Motor City should do....

And yes, the shirts are made in USA.

BanditTA

iTrader: (3)

I personally loved the Chrysler ads, hated the GM ones. GM in the past has had great stuff, these were horrible.