Since mid-October, Dodge has been rolling out its 2009 Ram truck with a set of commercials that run during NFL and college football games and elsewhere testosterone flows. These ads "feature" Dodge Ram trucks being driven into flaming buildings and around, through and over other kinds of obstacles. The slogan is "Never Back Down." The "shock-and-awe" ads direct you to a Yahoo website: ramchallenge.com for a series of webisodes. Here's the trailer, all part of a multimillion, multimedia extravangza that's enough to make you sick.









What we have here are four groups of grunting set-extras billed as actual contestants on a pseudo-reality show set in a hostile environment. They are labelled: Military, Cowboys, Contractors, and Firemen, which made me think of the Village People. Presumably each pair reflects a well-researched segment of the American truck-buying population who might just get so excited by these commercials that they'd actually buy a gas-guzzling Ram truck, something that many will have trouble affording.

Remember, during this same period Chrysler has also been desperately trying to persuade GM to buy them. Step back from the flash and fury here and you'll see a metaphor for the challenges faced by US auto industry; you'll see these ads as a story about what's happening not in the desert but in Detroit.

Quick, jump in an oversized American-made truck, see how fast it can go downhill without crashing, next tow a heavy trailer (pensions?) along hair-pin curves without tumbling down a hillside, and then go try to build and cross a makeshift bridge without dropping into a deep gully. During this race to the finish, you're running out of time and trying to avoid disaster. The media in helicopters hover above you, following your every move, waiting to move in. Even if you make it, the group that finishes last is eliminated. It's like we're watching a dream sequence from a movie about a US auto industry exec! Wake up, wake up!

To place a bet this size selling the wrong product at the wrong time is like pushing all your chips to the middle of the poker table and bluffing with a pair of threes. Is there any way any of the auto companies win? Do you and other US taxpayers want to add your own money to their pile? Never Back Down? Never Surrender? How is this for a new slogan: "Hold On!" It's better than "Fold."

The oddest thing about the Ram Challenge reality-ad is the warning that accompanies it: "Chrysler, LLC, Dodge and its Agencies insist that no one attempt to replicate the activity on this site." No, few of us have this kind of budget, even if such "stupid fun" somehow made sense for anyone to want to do.

Perhaps Dodge and its Agencies should go back and look at this Depression-era truck ad also produced at a time when it was equally tough to sell cars. This is back when car companies could look their customer in the eye and speak with some honesty about their products.











(image from Adclassix.com)