Dodge has answered back after receiving probably what they expected, some backlash for portraying men as wusses who can't make their own decisions and treating the Dodge Challenge as a "Man's Last Stand" car. The female gender answer is a commercial that's on Dodge's YouTube channel called "We Make Getaway Cars."
The ad features a woman who resembles actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. She is having her belongings thrown from a second story window by her boyfriend/husband/brother/dad??? It's not really clear what is going on, but the flannel shirt wearing woman gets into her Challenger SRT8 and roars away with onscreen copy reading "We make getaway cars."
I love the attitude of this ad, but it's not clear what she is getting away from not that it really matters. Making a fast U-Turn looks cool and the idea of getting away is also a positive.
I do love how the Dodge brand is having fun with their identity and trying to create a certain attitude that has disappeared in an industry where everything's gone green. There is just something refreshing and different with this latest effort from Dodge's new agency Wieden+Kennedy. This shouldn't be surprising to those who know automotive marketing history. Wieden+Kennedy was the firm featured in the book Where the Suckers Moon about the marketing efforts of Subaru in the early 1990s.
I don't think we are witnessing a similar story as Where the Suckers Moon, but I do believe we are experiencing some solid marketing from a marketing firm that creates some distinction for a brand and the latest from Dodge is doing just that. Now if only Dodge had competitive products to market, it would be even more interesting.
