The theme of the latest Jeep campaign for the revised Cherokee is “America’s Original Influencer,” featuring the all-time classic “Mama Said Knock You Out” from LL Cool J. I have no issue with either the new Cherokee or LL Cool J. I wish them both the best. This campaign is somehow offensive to me on many levels, both articulatable and not.
Am I the only one here? It’s fine if I’m the only one. So much of modern advertising has a stock photo/AI-generated sheen to it that it means basically nothing and typically evokes no emotion. This is stirring a feeling in me, even if that feeling is: Wow, I wish they hadn’t done this.
You can look at it and tell me if you care at all, or if you think I’m just complaining about something so that I have something to complain about:
On the surface, there’s nothing particularly wrong with it. Is the Jeep Cherokee the original American influencer? No. It’s not even the original influencer in the Jeep stable. That would be the Wrangler. It’s an advertisement, and as Joe Isuzu made clear, advertising is not to be factually believed.
That’s not what irks me most. Nor is it the weird edit where it goes…
Don’t call it a comeback, I been here for yearsI’m rockin’ my peers, puttin’ suckers in fear
…but it drops the second half of the verse, leaving this uncomfortable phantom limb feeling for the rest of the video.
(Embarrassing admission: For a longer period of time than I’ll fess up to here, I thought he was rapping “I’m rocking my penis” instead of “peers,” which would definitely put some suckers in fear.)
Even if you accept that advertising is an inherently compromised medium for truth-telling, the actual boast is kind of weird for the current vehicle. Stellantis/FCA/Chrysler/Long John Silvers/DaimlerChrysler/Whatever is on its 400th comeback, so it is fair to call it that. Perhaps it needs to pretend like the new Cherokee will live up to the legendary XJ to effectuate such a comeback, but it won’t be like an XJ, and that’s actually fine.
The new Cherokee doesn’t need to be the classic XJ. It’s an attractive, hopefully affordable hybrid crossover in a category where Jeep desperately needs to be competitive.
Because of this likelihood, what bothers me most is all the Jeep Cherokee KL erasure. Other than some welcome aesthetic improvements, the new Cherokee is far more like the KL than it is anything like the XJ or the two-door ’70 SJ also featured in these ads.
Again, that’s fine by me! The KL was a dramatic improvement in ride quality, safety, efficiency, and all the other factors necessary to make it a success in the market. It also had a TrailHawk version capable of better-than-average offroading for a crossover.
The best version of Jeep, arguably, was the Sergio-era FCA, where you had an always-good Jeep Wrangler at the top, a stout Grand Cherokee, and a bunch of affordable softroaders in various classes that were not built to go off-road but could if you ever really wanted to climb a mountain with your Renegade.
That’s exactly what Jeep needs and, arguably, what this new Cherokee is doing. Dressing it up in retro is just kind of off-putting. Again, no disrespect to Mr Cool James, whom the ladies still love.
Top photo: Jeep
I loved my old XJ, but the only thing that could influence me into a new FCA product is a giant wad of cash, and giving it to me for free.
They could have easily made this into a sort of Bronco-Sport-esque soft roader styled after the XJ, but this just looks like every other blobby crossover.
Yeah, I absolutely can’t stand anything to do w/ “influencer” I don’t care what anyone says as far as this, but it’s NOT a real job. Yes, I understand they can make good $, but at the end of their life, they will (or at least should) look back and think “hmm…I just wasted my whole life on my phone being a self absorbed attention seeking twat w/o any consideration for anyone outside of my bubble, including trashing nature and taking up space in parks while getting in everyone’s way just to get a fucking pic/video…I never did a real job to contribute to society”
So yeah, I don’t like that they applied it to the classic Jeeps…are we just going to ruin everything good? Oh, too late. Also, are they just going to keep shortening the Jeep grille? Stop! Keep it long like all the classic ones
Don’t know about anyone else, but if a product is being shilled by influencers, I run the opposite direction.
This ad only reminds me how far the Cherokee has fallen lol.
It’s far more palatable than pharmaceutical ads with reworked pop songs or extensive lists of body parts that could be destroyed by their product.
Although, to be fair, use of any motor vehicle – Jeeps included – could result in death.
Even if you’re complaining just to have something to complain about, it’s fine with me Matt. 🙂
I find almost all advertising kind of off-putting, even if it’s well-done and for a product or service that I actually need/like/want. I just kind of resent being marketed to so relentlessly, and of course the way that almost all ads play so fast and loose with the truth is less-than-endearing. Things are ‘hits’ or ‘best-sellers’ or ‘rated #1’ before they’ve even gotten to market, and so many ratings/rankings/awards have been purchased (usually via ad buys) rather than actually won by merit. J.D. Power awards are one such example.
It’s all a bit sickening actually, if you think about it too much. Even if some advertising approaches art.
Problem is, they can’t really say that this is a jeep intended to never go off road. which it clearly is.
Ad agency guy here. (And on an automotive account, too.) Here’s what most likely happened: the Jeep client saw that Goodyear ad, then went to their team at Doner and said, “Give me that, but make it about the Cherokee.”
Most big-name clients (in particular the automotive kind) lock onto the latest thing to catch their eye and then try to emulate it. And while nobody bankrolls a campaign like a Detroit automaker, the desire for bigness and flash usually overrides better ideas the Donor team no doubt presented.
none, I mean zero of Stellantis’ latest media campaigns does a thing for me. It’s like they assume that we’re all knuckle-dragging mouth breathing rolling coal dimwits.
Sorry James Colangelo, you beat me to it. Should have read ahead
I don’t love it. But I do think it’s sad is all Mopar has to trade on right now, is its past.
I despise this commercial, but can we also talk about the Ram commercials? “We are so AMERICAN and we can’t stop BEING AMERICAN because RAM IS AMERICAN and that’s what AMERICA is. AMERCIA! fucking gross.
They cranked the cringe up to eleven on those.
Sometimes you have to know your market. You, myself, and many others, aren’t the target market for that one.
My and I frequently comment ‘well, we’re obviously not the target audience for that’.
“RAM: the most AMERICAN trucks in AMERICA!*”
*Some Ram trucks built in Mexico
Replace with Humvee with the RAM and here’s the commercial. LOL
https://youtu.be/LasrD6SZkZk?si=xshkbJxc25Vfa39O
Wait; that’s not a parody commercial written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone?
Yeah, those are just off the charts levels of cringe.
Yes, that is the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen. This country is cooked.
LL Cool J
> LLCoolJ
> JL(LCool)
> J(L^2)(o^2)Cl
I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but neither are most JL drivers I see out there.
Isn’t one of the primary rules of being a successful influencer (ugh) not revealing your intent to influence others? Pretty sure they’re saying the quiet part out loud here. And poorly.
I get that they’re trying to capitalize on past glory with the new Cherokee, like basically all brands do, but I agree that Jeep would be better off continuing to promote the Wrangler and let the vibes trickle down to the rest of the lineup. The try-hard marketing for what is yet another run of the mill crossover just doesn’t land well with me. And I agree, overall the last Cherokee wasn’t a bad product, and it’s probably not worth pretending it never happened. If they’re so ashamed of it, maybe they shouldn’t have sold it for TEN YEARS.
At least Stellantis is finally trying to compete with the highest volume segment unlike the past year or two where they had absolutely nothing to offer against the RAV4 and CRV (I’m absolutely not counting the Compass, which comes off as more or less a Crosstrek/HR-V competitor, though I think Stellantis (wrongly, as always) figured they could get away with that).
My first thought was “well, it’s not as bad as the gritty oil field cowboy on top of a mountain RAM commercials”, but then again my only exposure to advertising is outside of my home or when I catch glimpses of cable broadcasts at friends houses.
(gravelly cowboy voice) “Only the Alpha Wolf Creatine Lone Star Tomahawk Steak 3500 General Patton Edition has the STONES to pull your entire neighborhood up Pikes Peak twice a day, as we all know you do”
I’m reminded of what David Spade said about MC Hammer.
“Do, do do do. Do do. Do do, It’s over.”
One of the comedy GOATS
This ad is much less annoying than the Goodyear Still Dre ad. I was watching a college football game on ESPN+ where GY had the first slot in every commercial break. As it played every couple of minutes for 4 hours, I went from nodding along to the beat, to mildly annoyed, to pledging to never buy a Goodyear product again, to contemplating how to get away with burning down their corporate HQ, to being completely broken and offering to buy as many Goodyears as it would take to just make it stop.
The subject commercial and the Goodyear one you mentioned make me remember another rap/hip-hop song used in advertisement that felt extremely misplaced. I remember a few years ago Walmart used “All of the Lights” by Kanye West in an ad. It felt very wrong, because the line in that song that I always think of is “Her mother, brother, grandmother hate me in that order”.
I used to listen to LLCoolJ when I was a teen in the early 90’s. I also have strong memories of the family 1989 XJ and the 1994 XJ. I even used to play LLCoolJ on the stereo and subwoofer in the 89 XJ when it was passed to me. But to see them together now, with him hawking Stellantis crap? That shit stinks. I guess LLCoolJ needed some retirement pay.
Dude, I felt that entire post.
Life was simple back then. I kinda miss it.