Time for sunny news at the end of a week that began soggily: This new national TV spot shows a successful young Detroit who's not a rapper, athlete, watchmaker or Corktown restaurant owner.
He's Slow Roll bike group co-founder Jason Hall, spotlighted by Apple as an innovator whose iPad is a daily efficiency tool.
The one-minute ad above, first aired this week on "The Daily Show," and a sizable online profile with 13 photos tells how the two-wheel tour D'etroit each Monday evening expanded from a dozen friends into a biking brigade with hundreds of riders. Hall tells how he plans and promotes it via his iPad -- and why the ride is about more than recreation.
Slow Roll encourages people from all walks of life to explore the many sides of Detroit. . . . Slow Roll isn’t a race — it’s an easy ride with a different route every week, celebrating Detroit’s rich history and new developments. . . .
“I started Slow Roll to show Detroit in a positive light love my city and I wanted to help other people love it again. . .
"I wanted to convince other people to see Detroit the way I was seeing it,” he says. “The plan was, let’s start a bike ride and see if people want to go with us.” . . .
Through Slow Roll, he's helping his neighbors reconnect with the place they call home. . . . "Slow Roll has transcended your typical bike ride. We're changing lives. It's affecting people in a real way, and it's changing people's perceptions."
Speaking of perceptions, the commercial also has a positive impact by showing the city without clichés. "Wow! A national Detroit ad that isn't focused on ruin porn," former Free Press columnist Desiree ("Detroit Snob") Cooper posted Thursday on Facebook.
"Jason Hall is the perfect ambassador for . . . our city," local adman Charlie Wollborg posts at the same site.
As a new Apple ambassador, Hall soon will make paid visits to stores in Washington, D.C., Chicago and Portland -- though not by bike.