Chrysler is one of the American car companies that were hit hard by the financial meltdown. Eventually with both some U.S. government money and Italian automaker Fiat buying part of the company they managed to get their shit together and stay afloat and recently turned a huge profit.

See link below:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/10/chrysler-profits-reliable-success-fiat/1

One of the things that helped them regain market share was a wildly successful “Imported From Detroit” advertising campaign that started at last year’s Super Bowl. American Car companies often tap into patriotic themes in their advertisement campaigns. For example, the Chevy Silverado advertisements that were ubiquitous on Television 4 years ago that featured “all American” things like guys in cowboy hats, dogs,  Nascar legend Dale Earnhardt, and John Cougar Melloncamp singing  “this is our country.”  Check out one of those advertisements below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVd5Ut-R_lE

now flash forward back to 2011 and the “Imported From Detroit” advertisement campaign. The Chrysler Super Bowl advertisement also has American symbols like the  American Flags, steel factories, highways,  and football players. But there is a big change from the car advertisements of the past that featured guys like Bob Seger singing “like a rock” or John Melloncamp singing “this is our country.” In the Chrysler advertisement, we slowly hear the music from Eminem’s Lose Yourself building in the background for over a minute until boom the beat hits and we get a shot of Eminem himself driving a Chrysler 200. Check out the ad here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKL254Y_jtc

In an even more recent Chrysler Commercial we again get patriotic symbols like fire fighters, kids selling lemonade,  and of course lots of American flags. This time the music accompanying the commercial is technically from a Bobby Bland song; but most people will recognize it as the sample from Jay Z’s song (produced by Kanye)  “Heart of The City” off of Jay Z’s seminal Blueprint album.

Chrysler and the marketing agency it hired obviously invensted tons of time, research, and money into making these commercials. It is a huge cultural shift that a marketing agency and a car company would choose to associate themselves with rappers like Jay Z and Eminem as their symbols of American in an advertising campaign that literally would either make or break the car companies future. You can watch the commercial here:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbOVAxSmC1c

People who are 40 years old now were born in 1971; Their teenage years where when Run DMC, Beastie Boys, L.L. Cool J and others exploded out of New York to become the dominant sound of the youth across different races. From the start of hip hop existence, there were artists who endorsed brands or brands that paid artists to endorse them; however the nature of these endorsements were usually to try to make the brand seem edgy, young, or rebellious. These new Chrysler advertisements are not like that. They are not trying to be have their brand associated with some sort of counter culture, they are trying to have their brand associated with mainstream patriotic America. In 2011, to be a main stream Patriotic American is to be a hip hop fan.

Jay Z and Kanye West seem to even acknowledge that because on their megahit Watch The Throne album they have the song “Made It In America” as anthemic centerpiece. My how the times of changed….#SweetBabyJesus