Northern Minnesota native Bob Dylan appeared in an ad for Chrysler in Sunday night’s Super Bowl.
Folks who stuck with the Seattle Seahawks blowout in the Super Bowl were treated to one of Chrysler’s trademark American heartstrings ads: this one featuring Hibbing’s own Bob Dylan.
The reclusive folk/rock troubadour waxed poetic about America, the road, and the Detroit-made goodness of Chrysler automobiles. My local social media feed did not lack the observation that Iron Range taconite is part of the steel that makes Chrysler and other American cars.
Here’s the ad:
I saw a split second image of an ore carrier on the Great Lakes … looks like it could be Duluth? Not sure there. Pretty cool if it is.
Chrysler always does a good job with their Super Bowl ad. Both the Clint Eastwood spot and the Eminem spot from previous years stroked my Upper Midwestern blue collar pathos.
The ad probably did quite a lot for Dylan’s local popularity, if only for the fact that he was completely intelligible and talking about a topic that Iron Rangers prefer.
Dylan Days 2014 is May 22-25 in Bob’s hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota. We have a top notch Chrysler dealership in town.
It’s tough to see one of your hero’s sort of sell out like that, but he did do it with class and, as you point out, he did speak intelligibly… It was well done. I just hope he had a reason to do it other than needing extra spending cash.
Er, Bob, “Is there anything more American than America?” Nope, there’s not, but unlike Ford or GM, Chrysler is now 100% owned by Fiat, in Italy, who bought it to keep the American UAW from forcing an IPO to get their money back. And isn’t that maybe why they’re doing this messaging campaign?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/01/01/fiat-chrysler-uaw-stake-ipo/4279411/
I liked the ad, and watched it more than once courtesy of a friend’s DVR. We agreed it was one of the best amid a pretty tepid field.
If you were to ask Pete Seeger, Dylan sold out almost a half-century ago, and the brickbats have only piled up ever since. But he’s always traveled by his own lights, making no apologies. I’m sure he’d be mortified if everyone loved him. That’s why he remains such a compelling figure.