Super Bowl, Super Upset
Ram’s 2018 Super Bowl commercial was 60 seconds long, and that 60 seconds caused huge controversy.
The Super Bowl is television’s biggest yearly event bringing in millions of viewers. It is estimated that 103.4 million people watched the 2018 Super Bowl, and this was the smallest audience since 2009.
Despite less viewers, the Ram Trucks ad that played at this years Super Bowl sparked major controversy. The commercial showed short clips of people helping others while a sermon by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King played. The commercial ended with the phrase “Built to Serve” on screen by the Ram logo.
Many people couldn’t believe a company really used Dr. King’s words to sell trucks, and many people immediately went to twitter to vent their anger.
Ram Trucks made a statement that the speech was made in collaboration with MLK’s estate, however, The King Centre, founded by Dr. King’s wife, made it clear that they had nothing to do with the ad.
Without a doubt, Ram Trucks was not exactly what Dr. King had in mind when he said, “Built to Serve”. But certainly a multi-billion dollar corporation wouldn’t roll out a commercial on television’s biggest yearly event without being certain it would go over well. Right?
To the people hating on the ad, I hear you. That this is not what Dr. King stood for and this is not what he would have wanted. He warned against capitalist consumerism, the speech was taken out of context and skewed differently.
But at the same time, the company probably didn’t mean for this backlash.
Any news is good news
In the most cynical perspective, if the company’s only motive really was to get people talking, at least it worked. There is a possibility (although slight) that every executive that approved this idea and every person involved in the creation of this ad only cared about what people would be talking about on Monday. Maybe then creating a potentially offensive commercial profiting off a famous Civil Rights hero might have sounded like a good idea. But keep in mind this is unlikely because that would imply that the company knew the public might react poorly: ergo bad press for the brand, ergo less people buy Ram Trucks, ergo less profits. It’s not really in the best interest of the company for everyone to hate Ram.
History of bad decisions
This is not the first commercial, or even the first car commercial, to use Dr. King’s words. Telecom Alcatel used King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in a 1999 ad. General Motors used King, Rosa Parks, Mohammed Ali and other historical figures in a 2006 ad. Mercedes Benz used King in a 2010 ad. It’s likely Ram saw no problem with doing this again.
Diversity
To its credit, this is the only Super Bowl 2018 (at least of the most popular ones) that makes any acknowledgement to Black History month or features people of colour. Most media, including Super Bowl commercials, focuses on white men and sometimes white women, but this ad portrayed a refreshing arrangement of people. This may have been a coincidence, but too much time and energy goes into creating these things for MLK and the equal inclusion of people of colour to have been picked out of a hat.
In short, I don’t think Ram intentionally tried to outrage people. This may be me wanting to take the optimistic perspective, but I think they wanted to make an ad with an important reminder that you can be “great” by serving the greater good. It was supposed to highlight the volunteer program Ram Nation.
Unfortunately, the ad pushed too far and people saw it as inappropriate instead of inspirational. The good message got lost in the poor execution, and now Ram is paying for their mistake in the court of public opinion.
