For the first time in his storied career, Bruce Springsteen will appear in a commercial.
In the two-minute Jeep ad, titled “The Middle,” Springsteen, who typically shuns commercial tie-ins, offers a somber plea to unite the country using a chapel in the town of Lebanon, Kansas, as a metaphor as it’s the geographic center of the country.
“It’s no secret, the middle has been a hard place to get to lately, between red and blue, between servant and citizen, between our freedom and our fear,” Springsteen narrates over atmospheric music and imagery. “Now, fear has never been the best of who we are. And as for freedom, it’s not the property of just the fortunate few; it belongs to us all.”
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The ad ends with the statement “To the ReUnited States of America.”
Springsteen wrote and produced the music accompanying the ad with Ron Aniello, Rolling Stone reported. The video was shot over five days in January in Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska.
The company considered a more comedic approach but instead took a more serious tone. At two minutes, it is also the game’s longest ad, CNBC reported.
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“I think the whole thing is Bruce’s prayer for an America reunited that finds its common ground again,” Olivier Francois, chief marketing officer for Stellantis, the company that owns Jeep and Chrysler, told the Wall Street Journal. “I’m not shooting for funny or serious. I don’t care. I’m shooting for a lasting message.”
Francois is known for taking a more serious approach for Super Bowl ads, including “Imported From Detroit” with Eminem; “It’s Halftime in America,” with Clint Eastwood; and “Farmer,” with Paul Harvey.
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Francois said he has tried for more than a decade to cast “The Boss” in an ad. Because of the concept of this ad, Springsteen agreed, the Journal reported.
“This is our style. This is our language. This is our approach to Super Bowl,” Francois told CNBC. “We really were trying to achieve a little bit of what we achieved in these other commercials, which is really relevance and meaning and something that will really tap into the moment.”
Cox Media Group
