{"id":1839,"date":"2011-02-11T02:24:21","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T07:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/?p=1839"},"modified":"2011-02-10T22:25:38","modified_gmt":"2011-02-11T03:25:38","slug":"imported-from-detroit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/2011\/02\/11\/imported-from-detroit\/","title":{"rendered":"Imported from Detroit"},"content":{"rendered":"

My favorite ad from last weekend’s Super Bowl was easily Chrysler’s two-minute defense of the Motor City.\u00a0 The ad aired during the 3rd quarter of the game, generating lots of buzz afterward.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

The dialogue that’s followed is often conflicted.\u00a0 Was this an ad for a new car, or was it an ad for the city of Detroit?\u00a0 Was it a defense of American industry?<\/p>\n

Visually, the ad is stunning.\u00a0 Tightly cropped shots show active industry, graceful old skyscrapers and works of civic art, as well as Detroiters going about their days.\u00a0 As Aaron Renn notes<\/a>, it is an amazing presentation of a civic brand, perhaps one of the strongest we have in the United States even despite the city’s downtrodden reputation:<\/p>\n

What this really shows once again is the power of brand Detroit. Is there another city in America an ad like that could have been created about? Even in a radically different style, it\u2019s hard to imagine someone using the power of a city\u2019s brand to sell a product in that way other than perhaps a tourist town or in a totally facile way (\u201cWe brew our beer in Milwaukee\u201d). If someone tried, it certainly wouldn\u2019t be nearly as effective. There are lots of cities that have \u201cbeen to hell and back,\u201d but I can only think of two where you could pull off something like this: Detroit and New Orleans. Not even Chicago has the brand power to resonate like this, showing at least one way in which Detroit actually exceeds the Windy City.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the comments<\/a>, Aaron Naparstek<\/a> notes the inherent contradictions between Detroit the city image and Detroit as the American auto industry:<\/p>\n

As pure TV product the ad is phenomenal. As branding for the U.S. auto industry, however, the ad is deeply, fatally flawed. After all of what has happened these last few years, it is stunning that Detroit is choosing to brand itself in the American consciousness with a \u201cluxury\u201d muscle sedan that gets 21 mpg on a good day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

DC, of course, is often victim to the same phenomenon, where “Washington” means the federal government, yet it also means the city of 600,000 residents along the Potomac River.\u00a0 Detroit, however, seems to embrace this particular association as one of hard work, quality, craftsmanship, and luxury – even if the actual success of the car the ad is selling remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

\"Detroit<\/a>Detroit Industry – CC image from Tobias Higbie on flickr<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the imagery is compelling.\u00a0 From Joe Louis’ fist<\/a> to the Spirit of Detroit<\/a> to Campus Martius<\/a> to Detroit Industry<\/a>, the city and its residents embrace that connection and that brand – while District residents might instead talk about the difference between ‘Washington’ and ‘DC.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My favorite ad from last weekend’s Super Bowl was easily Chrysler’s two-minute defense of the Motor City.\u00a0 The ad aired during the 3rd quarter of the game, generating lots of buzz afterward. The dialogue that’s followed is often conflicted.\u00a0 Was this an ad for a new car, or was it an ad for the city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[285,283,284,452,116],"class_list":["post-1839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-auto-industry","tag-branding","tag-chrysler","tag-detroit","tag-industry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pHcGQ-tF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1839"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1846,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions\/1846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexblock.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}