At yesterday's eight hour press conference, the Chrysler group unveiled the first television spot for the Ram truck brand. Ram was recently spun off from Dodge. The new spot is titled “I am Ram.” It features a slide show of various images showcasing Ram with all the typical clichés: cowboys, galloping horses, construction guys, firemen, and dirt… lots and lots of dirt.
A slow, monotone voiceover shares what the Ram brand is all about: Optimism, can-do, over-achievement, loyalty, and delivering the goods. It’s as if the brainstorming team wrote a bunch of sticky notes and put them all on a board and decided which feelings to keep. Then the copywriter took the sticky notes, threw them into a hat, and pulled them out one-by-one to write the copy for the ad.
The spot also communicates a sort of tag line in saying “my tank is full.” I’m sure the less sarcastic take is that it is ready for anything with a full tank of gas. Others felt it communicated something else.
Personally I think the whole slide show concept was born from this excellent clip (“the carousel”) from the TV show “Mad Men.” Unfortunately, it lacks the conviction of a Don Draper, but it does try.
