Dodge is showing us “How to Change Cars Forever.” It involves breaking all the rules, and spotlights inspiration and the creative process as the true source of innovative product design.
The division of Chrysler builds on the “Imported from Detroit” campaign, which famously launched with music of Detroit native Eminem, with fast-paced and irreverent visuals backed with a hip, but foreboding, instrumental version of “No Church in the Wild” by Jay-Z and Kanye West.
The spot, from Portland-based Wieden + Kennedy, manages to portray the R&D department at Dodge as the guys who don’t care for the corporate overlords and liberally color outside the lines of the company org chart. “Kick out the committees. Committees lead to compromise. Call in the engineers. Call in the car guys. Call in the nerds. Not those nerds—those nerds. Uh oh…the finance guys. Kick out the finance guys.”
In short, we want to love the rule-breaking, car-loving guys fighting the boring and banal power of tie-wearing, fine-print-loving middle managers who’d rather “shift paradigms” than downshift gears to screech around a sharp turn in a cool car. We love their passion—and then we want their car.
In the next spot, “How to Make the Most Hi-Tech Car,” we see an actor called “Future Guy” who travels back from the future to design the Dart’s configurable 7-inch instrument cluster display. And if you’re a Star Trek fan you’ll recognize Future Guy. It’s Michael Dorn who played Worf—everybody’s favorite Klingon. So +4 on the nerd cred to both agency and client alike for entangling a little Trek in a spot about tech—and generally making a lot of sci-fi guys happy.
