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
A lot to digest there…
I’ve owned one Jeep. A 1994 Grand Cherokee V-8. And only because it went around corners better than a 1994 Ford Explorer. For the price, the Ford had much better seats. (Like the best I have ever sat on.) But my wife liked the Jeep better. And you know…
Fortunately, we went with the 36-month bumper to bumper warranty instead of the 7-year/70K mile powertrain warranty. Because a lot of stuff went wrong during its first three years, but then it did settle down. Never with the powertrain.
We sold it with 120K on the clock and despite only enduring one winter in Cleveland, when it was up on a lift in Seattle, for oil and tire changes the mechanics would go “Wow!” at the amount of rust.
But the 2001 CR-V we replaced it with was better in almost every way.
This ad that you linked just made me want to watch a bunch of old MotorWeek shows. About almost anything besides Jeeps.
I spent six years in SE Texas, and most of the Jeeps had never been off road and the ones that had, wore the mud like a merit badge. And then, when they wanted to look presentable to some date, filled up the dirt traps at self-serve car washes (including one I owned) because they would get rejected at drive-through ones. Emptying those sumps was more expensive than you might guess.
I went off road in a ’68 Datsun 510 station wagon and a ’71 Peugeot 504. No. we didn’t go to Moab. But anywhere we wanted to go, we got there. And didn’t get stuck. Or break anything. Honeymooned in the Peugeot after a BMW Bavaria blew a head gasket on the way to the rehearsal dinner. Didn’t spoil a thing.
It’s been a fun life.
How do you do, fellow kids.
This. Very much.
Stellantis doesn’t seem to sell cars, just identity. Don’t overthink it Matt. It’s just another annoying commercial to sell you overpriced crap. A big reason why I’m not watching much sports lately. The game was on yesterday, but I hung out in the garage chatting about cars with my Mom over a couple beers. It was nice. Thanks capitalism! You’re pushing me towards minimalism and spending more intellectual time with people away from media. Anyway, I got LL Cool J stuck in my head for the rest of the evening.
They still need to change the name to stop the cultural appropriation, like they’ve been repeatedly asked to.
Does car advertising even work? Like who bases huge life decisions based on watching something for 30s?
Stellantis buyers.
I remember my mother taking notice of the ads for the new 1990 Nissan 300ZX (Z32) when it launched. Now, she had a few years old Z31 at the time that she was happy with, but once she saw the ’90, she was smitten.
To be fair, the Z32 is still lovely today. So, maybe this isn’t that great of an example. But I do maintain the ads for that car certainly got her on the path to getting one in short order.
My favorite feature of ‘targeted’ advertising is that of course I see a ton of car ads on social media because I interact with car content. Joke’s on them though, because the only car that I will be ‘influenced’ into buying is a 12 year old Volvo.
Teenage me really wanted to go buy the following vehicles after seeing them on a tv commercial: 1994 Camaro w/ t-tops; 1999 Celica; 2000 Sentra SE-R; 2003 Z4. I still search craigslist for those 4
I’m a one of those forgotten gen X-ers. If you want to say trend setter, you have my ear. Once that Gawd awful word “Influencer” hits my ears I shut down and don’t give a flying F what words fall out of ones mouth after hearing that awfully offensive to me term. I’m tuff enough and smart enough to make my own decisions, thank you. Don’t need no idiot influencing me to do shit. If I NEVER EVER hear that word “Influencer” again in this lifetime, I just might die a happy and not bitter old man. Gawd I Hate that fricken term! Wish it could be forever banned from the vocabulary!
The Wrangler is the Jeepiest Jeep, but it wasn’t an influencer like the Cherokee.
The Wrangler was the quintessential single person’s vehicle, not suitable for family use.
The Cherokee was the one that turned an industry on its head.
This isn’t a bad ad, but it’s certainly not a good one either. I’m not in the target demographic of hip hop fans who still feel connected to a thirty year old rap track, but don’t care how badly it’s diced up to make a sales pitch.
Eh. It’s an eminently forgettable commercial.
I daily drove a KL Cherokee for 9 years / 170K miles – aside from the annoying oil cooler issue it was one of the best all-around vehicles I’ve ever had (I’m old, I’ve owned/driven a lot of vehicles). Also have a TJ Wrangler. So I’m (slightly) positively biased.
That said, who TF is this ad even targeting? Seriously, who? It looks like something a mediocre student made as a project for a marketing class – and got a C- grade on…
The target market for the new Cherokee probably wouldn’t tolerate driving my stock 99 XJ for more than 5 minutes. The concept of outdoors roughing it looks cool until they actually have to to rough it.
IDK, a lot of people seem to tolerate the abysmal experience of driving a wrangler on pavement. Now that’s roughing it. I’m constantly impressed what people will tolerate for their image.
Meh, can’t be any worse than “I live, I ride, I am Jeep”. Am I the only one who remembers that campaign?
What I didn’t like was that they didn’t use the actual song, it seems like some AI interpolation done to avoid paying the estates of James Brown or Sly Stone
Another Jeep/LL Cool J crossover – the cover to Kool Moe Dee’s album How Ya Like Me Now pictured a Wrangler running over a red Kangol, a shot at LL Cool J. (Yeah, I know, cool story bro.)
I Go To Work would be great in a commercial, FWIW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Ya_Like_Me_Now
Ladies Love Cool Jeeps?
The girlies do love Jeeps, there’s really no way around it
It’s aggressively banal. It’s already dated feeling, it doesn’t say anything. It’s so inoffensive that I can’t even get offended by how inoffensive it is. It has nothing to do with a vehicle and everything to do with capital-L Lifestyle posturing, precisely in the vein of the influencers it’s trying to climb over to plant the flag of Eyeball Jima in everyone’s head long enough to buy buy buy.
Stellantis has this type of advertising cornered and their primary sales demographic has been the lowest common denominator for years now. Honestly I find these ads to be less grating and insulting of the viewer than the godforsaken RAM ones are. I haven’t seen any for the upcoming ICE Charger yet but I’m sure they’ll be invading my football consumption any weekend now and they’ll be real bad.
I think these ads are fairly effective to be honest. The song is a classic, everyone knows LL Cool J’s voice so he’s a good choice of narrator, and they play up the heritage/look at all these cool off roaders angle because frankly it’s all they have. I’ve gone on the record as liking the styling of the new Cherokee and saying I might even consider buying one if they turn out well (BIG if there) but it’s almost certainly not going to be a class leading product.
Honestly if they’re lucky it’ll maybe be middle of the pack behind the CRV and RAV4 and will not offer the resale value and longevity of either of those vehicles. So what do they have to go with? It’s a fucking JEEP, bro! You can totally off road your eCVT equipped hybrid Cherokee just like the classics!
…of course that isn’t the case. At all. The initial version of this will be limited to fire roads and trailheads, but the market doesn’t care. If it’s decent enough it’s going to sell, because the Jeep name still means something to a lot of people, it’s decent looking despite the fact that our beloved commentariat thinks absolutely everything designed after 2010 is hideous, and it’s efficient. The streets demand hybrids, and Stellantis understood the assignment.
So is Stellantis’s strategy for its USDM brands that everything has to be loud and in your face all the time? Is the Pacifica going to utilize Limp Bizkit’s “My Way” next?
For long suffering Stellantis customers, I think Nazerath’s version of “Love Hurts” is appropriate.
I think it’s time to give up on my 7 year old Pacifica PHEV. It probably needs a new logic board because FCA soldered them poorly, but what it’s getting under the PHEV warranty is a few magic words and sent back to me. It’s frustrating because FCA designed a really good PHEV, especially for 2018 when we bought it, and then just…didn’t put it together well. But something can only limit my wife to 10 MPH once before it goes on the shit list.
Congrats on getting 7 years, ours only made it 22 months
I never had any strong feelings about either the song or the Jeep. I’m not going to get worked up about the combination.
Your comment about the misinterpretation of the lyric rings so true with me. When someone asks me about a song, I always say, “Lyrics not guaranteed.”
All that commercial showed me are Jeeps I’ll be looking for when I get around to buying another. Unfortunately for Stellantis, it won’t be any of theirs.
I get the tactic here, but I do have to wonder what would have happened if Jeep actually tried to address why the new ones should be seen as worthy of the old ones – like specifically cite a modern piece of tech that enables off road ability (at least relatively) similar to the old ones. At the very least, might win over some enthusiasts.
Once upon a time, off-road capability was the reason buyers purchased Jeeps (it sure wasn’t on-road performance). Today, off-road capability is just a nice feature of what is otherwise only another car on the road. To be fair, this transition didn’t begin with Stellantis, AMC began domesticating Jeeps almost as soon as they bought out Kaiser. AMCs were just closer to the original DNA than todays’s Jeeps, so the rough and ready mythology was still mostly reality. Maybe a commercial showing a mom in a new Jeep braving a blizzard to get her kid to the hospital would resonate more with most of todays buyers. Not sure. They don’t reach me.
If there’s one thing Jeep is good at, its living off past glory.
Fun fact: in the late 1980s/early 1990s, the Wrangler had something of a following in New York’s rap and hip-hop scene.
Kool Moe Dee featured one on the cover of his 1987 album ‘How Ya Like Me Now’ and Wesley Snipes’ character had one in the 1991 film ‘New Jack City’.
Also featured in CB4.
I remember this being a fun movie. But yeah, Chris Rock is the young buck in the newer YJ and Charlie Murphy is the old school in the CJ-7. It was a nice touch.
I hate it as well. “Don’t call it a comeback” has been stuck in my head because of the 5 second wait to skip YouTube ads. It’s like it was written by a bunch of old people that don’t even know what an influencer is.
Jeep has fallen into the trap other companies do when referencing old versions; people will look and go “the old one was better looking etc, wonder how much one is now?”
Not only that, all their highlights in the ad (and honestly any “good” Jeep) are also class leading off road capability. Except for the Wrangler & Gladiator, every other Jeep offered today is, at best, better than average off road but often times not even that. They keep playing hard into a market they aren’t even close to leading anymore.
Look at how good we used to be! Now buy this.
Maybe they were talking Jeep and not necessarily the Cherokee. I thought the music a bit toned down but otherwise no different than most commercials.
Jeep’s harmless, don’t be ridiculous.