Jeep: The Gap Between Intention and Interpretation

People are asking, how can a message of unity be divisive? The answer is because commercials don’t live in a vacuum but within the broader cultural context. See, it’s our own experiences that shape how we interpret a piece of advertising. And like with a new product, you never know what it will mean to people until you put it out there in the world.

Cultural Context: On Jan 6th, it was White Christian Nationalists that stormed the Capitol in DC, claiming God sent Trump to save America. They were mostly from rural areas, united under a banner of God, Guns, and Country, saying their way of life was under attack, using religion to justify their intolerant beliefs.

On the heels of this event, we have the debut of Jeep’s ‘The Middle’, a spot featuring a chapel in rural America and a call to come “meet here,” with the imagery of a heart and cross over a map of the USA.

When it comes to religious iconography, most people engage their reactionary minds and don’t entertain the nuance or the metaphor. It’s not a stretch to see how people could interpret this message as saying you need more Jesus in your life, our type of Jesus. Excluding and dismissing anyone of another faith or no faith at all.

Now, take the chapel and add the imagery of a character in a cowboy hat (ignoring for a moment that it’s Bruce Springsteen), driving a 4x4, saying we need to meet in the middle. The iconography is a Conservative saying to Democrats, meet us in the middle. When for years, Democrats believe it’s the Republicans that have been the extremists and obstructionists against a party that wants to bring people together. And Conservatives…well they see Bruce Springsteen, a rich, liberal elite, from the coast, pandering to rural America. A rural America that supports the troops above all else, and didn’t this guy write a song in protest of the Vietnam war?

People don’t see the gesture, that the environment can represent one side, the celebrity another, and the point is showing they can coexist on common ground. We see our tribes and point fingers at the very suggestion that we’re the ones not bending enough. Especially, in a fight where people believe that this is about good and evil. A struggle alluded to when Springsteen says, our light has always found our way through the darkness.

But why would someone’s mind jump to White Christian Nationalism? How does that have anything to do with Jeep? Maybe, because historically, Jeep has had models named: Renegade, Patriot, Liberty, Gladiator, Commander, Wrangler, and Cherokee. The model names bring the militant connotations, the religious iconography and American flags do the rest.

Springsteen is a brilliant musician and a poet, and I’m all for the message that we need more centrists and collaboration to tackle the challenges we face as a country.

Hell, I even love Jeep Wranglers! I’ve been to the Easter Jeep Safari in Moab and know the Jeep owner community to be a fascinating, supportive, diverse group built around an attitude that we can overcome anything together.

However, with all that positive equity, in the context of the current political landscape, I can still look at this and see how people interpret the idea as saying the center of our country, its core if you will, are White Christians, and you need to get on board with that to save our country.

Now there’s no part of me that believes the interpretation above is what was the creative team and clients intended, but that’s the point. You can’t control what the public’s response will be, even with such a positive message as unity. There will always be a gap between intention and interpretation, the trick is to understand what this might be during the creative process, and not be surprised when you discover it after launch.

But hey, let’s end on a funny note. It appears the key to reuniting America is to get rid of Michigan’s upper peninsula. If that happened, it would eliminate about 150,000 votes from an area where 13 of 15 counties voted Republican. Probably enough to turn Michigan into a reliably “blue” state. For anyone who says I read into things too much, that’s reading into things too much.