I saw two of the commericals ("MPG" and "Glovebox") during yesterday's games and was unimpressed. While I wouldn't argue for Fernando Lamas and "Corinthian leather," I thought Will Ferrell's "Ron Burgundy" was a little too down-scale. Or at worst waaay too dumb.
I fully understand humor, parody, irony and sarcasm but hanging your product's future on stupidity is too risky, IMHO. Personally, I would've used Ferrell (or Dan Akroyd, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray etc.) as a foil for my spokesman. Make the spokeman look sharp and with-it as the foil is clueless, baffled, confused, inarticulate et. al.
If anyone here remembers the James Gardner/Marrete Hartley commercials for Kodak back in the '70s they would see where I'm going with this . . . :-)

 

It takes ***** to make a commercial like that. Clearly it shows that they are going for a younger demographic. I think they were funny, and at the same time a poor strategic decision. They just positioned a $45,000 vehicle as immature and juvenile while not really educating anyone on why these are great trucks.

As a marketing guy, I would say that Ford's Mike Rowe series of commercials seem far more effective.

 

I agree. He's hardly touting what these vehicles offer. I'm not a huge Will Ferrell fan to begin with as I find his stuff not terribly funny.......other than Old School, which had its moments. I hope Dodge follows through with some actual numbers and comparison figures in future ads.

 

Here is a local paper by me that list what the deal is with Ron Burgundy.

http://www.freelancestar.com/2013-10...-for-chrysler/

 

Watching the press conference today they are targeting the Active lifestyle 40-50 yr olds family men
STEVE

 

HEY.... that's me, and I already have one! So they must be doing it right then, LMAO

 

The link takes you only to the home page and not the specific story..

 

Yep. Plus those guys from Sonic. :-)

 

So after reading some replies I thought about how effective these advertisements really are so yesterday I showed the gumball video to 10 people at work. 7 men and 3 women. I initially asked all of them one question. Would you buy a Durango based on this commercial alone. Obviously they all replied no. Although 3 of them asked follow up questions about the truck. " none of them recalled seeing one on the road and since I don't drive mine to work it seemed like a fair experiment. Today I asked another question to the 10 people. What kind of Vehicle was in the commercial yesterday. They all replied A DODGE DURANGO. So I assume they were using a high profile personality to get the dodge Durango into viewers minds. I guess that worked.

 

A very interesting experiment and result.