In 2012, Chrysler’s Halftime in America commercial got my vote for the best SuperBowl advertisement. Once again in 2013, Chrysler topped all the others with this year’s “God Made a Farmer” video. The commercial featured compelling visuals and a powerful voiceover, but without question the most powerful element was the message.
Chrysler did not develop the message. The words were taken from a 1978 speech mad by conservative radio newscaster Paul Harvey. Nonetheless, I give Chrysler (and their ad agency) credit for having the genius to use the voice over in their commercial.
The power of the commercial was its appeal to the value system of the buyer personas Chrysler is targeting with its Dodge Ram pickup truck. I am not sure about the demograhics of pickup truck owners, but I suspect a healthy percentage live in rural areas associated with agriculture. Therefore, the farmer persona is a great target audience for the ad.
I suspect most place a strong value on religion, hence the words in Harvey’s speech:
“And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God made a farmer.”
I suspect most place a strong value on hard work
“And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain’n from ‘tractor back,’ put in another seventy-two hours.”
I suspect most place a strong value on community
“…eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.”
I suspect most place a strong value on hardship
“God said, ‘I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year.'”
I suspect most place a strong value on ingenuity
“I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps.”
And we all place a strong value on family
“Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life ‘doing what dad does.'”
