Jeannie Tse recently posted an entry, “The Purpose of Car Ads?”, discussing how car companies ensure that their image and brand are highlighted in their commercials in order to differentiate themselves from other competitors. She included a youtube video of a car advertisement for Chrysler, which I too found very intriguing.
The first thoughts which came to mind after watching this video were the amount of affective components used to influence the audience. Although I am not from Detroit, I felt the national pride they were attempting to build, in order to gain support from Americans to buy American made cars. In addition, by having Detroit-born rapper Eminem in the video, it further engrains the idea that Chrysler is “imported from Detroit”.
However, I question the idea of emphasizing “imported from Detroit”. Jeannie mentions that “it was an ad that was targeted towards Americans, and specifically citizens from Detroit”. The advertisement starts off by asking, “What does this city know about luxury?”, highlighting the history and “know-how” of the city of Detroit in relation to the brand. What does this exactly say about the car, though? And how will they expand this idea to Canadians?