Ethical Issues Whole Again Jeep Ad

Final night's Super Bowl got out of hand well-nigh as quickly every bit the newsman fight in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

This meant that I, watching the game home alone since Super Bowl parties aren't safe these days, turned to the ads to keep myself entertained. Sadly, with a few exceptions, most were as stinky as the game itself.

The ones that were supposed to be funny mostly weren't, the emotional/inspirational ones were mostly fine only unmemorable, and the one that was so bad that I retrieve it was intentionally terrible for the sake of virality was simply annoying.

Certain, a couple of them made me giggle. Cheetos was proficient – hey there, Shaggy! – and the Bud Light Legends ad made me chortle. There were others I liked, but overall, the body of piece of work from the ad world was bad.

When it came to the car ads, the GM/Norway one with Will Ferrell got a minor laugh out of me, while the Cadillac Edgar Scissorhands spot gets points for effort if not execution. But the Jeep ad was the one generating fizz from the minute it made its way online before the game.

It featured Bruce Springsteen, doing what is billed as his beginning ad ever, driving around in a Jeep, talking near how this state could come together in the name of unity.

[Ed .  note: Aye, this article touches on cars and politics. Please play nice in the comments if yous don't want to face the banhammer.]

[Second Ed. note, dated 02/11/2021 — The advertisement has been pulled from YouTube due to Springsteen beingness arrested for DWI in 2020. If and when we tin can supplant the video, nosotros will do so.]

In normal times, that would be a perfectly fine sentiment to express. A divided country, a Congress that struggles to get anything done in a bipartisan manner, distasteful rhetoric polluting the discourse … yeah, I recall near reasonable people would exist exhausted by the divisiveness and set for some unity.

Except the problem is that a fringe element isn't interested in unity. Function of that element, driven at to the lowest degree in function past misinformation and disinformation, refuses to believe the factual truth regarding who won the 2020 presidential election. Part of that element stormed the Usa Capitol in an attempt to overthrow a autonomous election. It was an insurrection. On American soil.

Read the final scrap once more and allow information technology sink in. I'll wait.

Proficient, you lot're back. I desire to make something admittedly clear here. I am not calling out an unabridged side of the political alley for the deportment of a minor percent of the population. I know many Republicans/conservatives, including Trump supporters, accept the results of the election. I know others might worry well-nigh voter fraud (something that is near nonexistent in this land) just they wouldn't storm the Capitol. I know enough of those on the political correct think QAnon is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

I also know in that location are fringe elements on the left that aren't interested in unity at all, either, although there's an asymmetry at play at the moment.

I'm fully aware the percentage of the population that has broken with reality is relatively small (though seriously vocal). Merely to reiterate from above: I am not here to point fingers at anybody on any one side of the political aisle. That would be factually inaccurate. I know there are reasonable conservatives out at that place who want unity and bipartisan compromise where possible.

My point is simply that it'southward difficult, if not impossible, for reasonable people with reasonable disagreements to come together in a show of unity when a small simply very vocal part of the population has been sucked into a vortex of unreality and is willing to storm the nation'southward Capitol building because they didn't go their manner in a costless and fair ballot. There's no room for compromise with people who literally volition resort to violence to avoid information technology.

Y'all really can't compromise with folks who wear a "Camp Auschwitz" hoodie or carry the Amalgamated flag in the U.South. Capitol.

Not to mention that compromise is incredibly difficult when people are living in an alternating reality.

I don't blame Jeep for trying. The sentiment is well-intentioned. And possibly it would've worked if we were simply divided, as an electorate, over how best to govern the nation. If we were fighting over healthcare, or taxes, or fifty-fifty hot-button cultural bug.

Instead, we're fighting over reality.

I saw screenshots of aroused Jeep owners on Twitter terminal night – aroused that an anodyne plea for unity made Jeep "political." Of class, that's not what they were actually aroused about – it should go without maxim that the ad was referring to politics. Springsteen even mentioned it in the advertizing. What angered them is that the call for unity seemed, to them, to be a rebuke of their politics.

Those folks are besides upset at beingness called out for a type of grievance politics that drives the divisiveness to be interested in any sort of harmony.

Maybe some were irritated that Springsteen himself hasn't been shy to express political views that disharmonize with theirs.

Unity requires good-religion efforts on all sides. At least i extreme but influential element of our politics has shown no interest in that kind of good-religion effort. Until they do, calls for unity audio nice but are utterly meaningless.

Politics aside, I also am non sure how this sells Jeeps. I approximate the subtext is that whether we're left, right, or center we can all agree Jeeps are cool? Or that Jeep – and past extension the other FCA/Stellantis brands – want to cultivate good relationships with customers of all political stripes?

I suppose Jeep has customers from all over the political spectrum – I asked but the company didn't have data on customers' political affiliations information technology could share. I understand the desire to produce a experience-good ad with the intent of painting Jeep every bit a brand that the auto-buying public tin can turn to every bit a refuge from our wearying politics.

After all, when you're stuck in the muck and a Wrangler tows you out, no ane cares who voted for who. Unless the rescuer is just being a wiggle to the one knee-deep in mud.

Thing is, if a brand or its associated lifestyle is your just refuge, our country's soapbox is more cleaved than I thought. We won't have unity if people can only put their differences bated on the trails.

More than to the point, Jeep and The Dominate tin call for unity until they're as blue in the confront as Bruce looked in that video (topless Jeep in the cold – brrr). Information technology won't matter unless those of us who are reasonable can compromise with our ideological opposites without interference from the extremists.

That is a problem that no one company, not even Jeep, can solve.

[Image: Screenshot via YouTube]

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Source: https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2021/02/opinion-jeeps-super-bowl-ad-wont-unite-us/

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