The Tremendous Bowl has lengthy been a showcase for automakers trying to exhibit their newest autos or give a brand new path for his or her model. Automotive corporations will often pull out all of the stops with high-budget, high-concept commercials with star-studded casts. It’s not precisely an unusual apply, however one industrial stands above the remaining, and it’s for the goddamn Chrysler 200.
Again in 2011, Chrysler determined to drop “Born of Fireplace,” a two-minute-long advert that’s higher often called “Imported from Detroit” throughout Tremendous Bowl XLV. The industrial is an ode to Detroit, utilizing town as a background to indicate the place Chrysler (and Detroit) has been and the place it plans to go. In essence, Chrysler was attempting to persuade us that the 200 – a rebadged Sebring sedan – was a luxurious automotive, and dammit, it really kind of labored. I imply, the 200 was a chunk of shit, however on the time that advertising and marketing actually labored on me.
Within the advert, we see some pretty tough photographs of Detroit as an all-black 200 (being pushed by Detroit native Eminem) drives although. Narrator Kevin Yon, a Rockford, Michigan native, talks about his metropolis, onerous work and what luxurious means in America. It ends with Eminem coming into the Fox Theatre in Detroit and strolling as much as the Chosen of God choir singing the tune of his music “Lose Your self” on stage. He turns to the digital camera and says “That is the Motor Metropolis, and that is what we do.” The video ends with a 200 driving across the smokey streets of Detroit because the phrases “The Chrysler 200 Has Arrived” and “Imported From Detroit” seem on the display. To this present day, all these years later, it nonetheless offers me chills, and I’ve by no means even been to Detroit.
You’ve received to recollect, this was just some years after the Nice Recession first began with each Chrysler and Common Motors getting baled out by the federal government and some years earlier than Detroit would go bankrupt. In quite a lot of methods, it was an actual low level for town and the American automotive business. This advert did rather a lot to show the web page on these ideas, letting of us know that town and the automobiles it builds are again.
Clearly, with hindsight being 20/20, we all know that the 200 wasn’t actually a lot of a luxurious automotive and to this present day Detroit nonetheless struggles with making true luxurious autos, however for a fleeting second in 2011, it was the middle of the automotive universe as soon as once more. I’ve watched quite a lot of automotive advertisements in my day, and none have ever come too near the influence of “Born of Fireplace,” and it was all for a crappy midsize sedan. Think about if Chrysler’s merchandise had been nearly as good as this industrial. That would actually be one thing.
