Americans Taken For A Ride By Chrysler And W+K

The Kings and Queens of America are the ones who reach out and take what’s there. Because this is America, the land where world-changing opportunities are ripening on the vine. All you have to do is harvest them and turn them into products that generate glorious profits.

Provided you’re man or woman enough to drive a Chrysler.

The commercial above, created by Wieden + Kennedy/Portland, builds on the well worn American myth that wealth and power are not a birthright, but rather simply there for the taking. It’s a popular P.O.V., but one with little factual basis or credibility.

According to a recent article in The New Yorker:

Seventy per cent of people born into the bottom quintile of income distribution never make it into the middle class, and fewer than ten per cent get into the top quintile. Forty per cent are still poor as adults. The middle class isn’t all that mobile, either: only twenty per cent of people born into the middle quintile ever make it into the top one. And although we think of U.S. society as archetypally open, mobility here is lower than in most European countries.

So, why parade a fantasy in front of American viewers and call it a commercial? Is Chrysler intent on selling more cars, or do they prefer to sell us an idea of ourselves that we want to believe, but don’t?

Previously on AdPulp: The Scoundrel’s Dilemma: When and How to Evoke Patriotism in Advertising