Business

Video: Ford Has A Better Idea -- Mock Cadillac's Commercial

March 27, 2014, 9:01 PM by  Alan Stamm

Who doesn't enjoy a feisty, frisky ad war?

The Team Detroit agency in Dearborn fires a shot at Cadillac while promoting Ford' C-MAX electric hybrid. The founder of a Detroit environmental nonprofit group satirizes the controversial Caddy ELR model commercial of a middle-aged man boasting about America’s work ethic and consumer culture.

"We decided to take the conversation a little further," Toby Barlow, chief creative officer at the agency, explains at his Facebook page.

Zlati Meyer of the Free Press describes the one-minute YouTube parody titled "Upside" -- as in . . . ah, you get it.

At the center of the faux ad is Pashon Murray, founder of Detroit Dirt, a sustainability consultancy and advocacy group, who’s first seen standing amid mounds of dirt and mud and later is shot in a cramped apartment hallway. . . .

In the video, Murray says, “We’re crazy entrepreneurs trying to make the world better. Some people might think we’re nuts. Whatever. Me? I collect food scraps from restaurants, manure from zoos. Manure. Do you know why? To keep this stuff out of landfills and use it. . . . It’s pretty simple you work hard. You believe that anything is possible and you try to make the world better. You try.” . . .

Ford spokeswoman Sara Tatchio described the video as “lighthearted.”

“I don’t think we’re mocking a competitor. We’re trying to showcase positive work being done in our community,” she said.

The send-up, posted Wednesday, has more than 15,000 views as of Thursday night. It earns prominent praise Thursday from Rebecca Rosen at The Atlantic:

Where Cadillac stumbled, Ford saw opportunity. . . . We see a different vision of America — one that values its idealists, not its crass materialists. . . .

The ads run against each other like counterpoint: He is a middle-aged, rich, white, suburban guy. She is a black woman living in a small urban apartment. He praises America for being harder working than "other countries." She presents herself and "more and more" Americans as a citizens of the globe, "crazy entrepreneurs trying to make the world better."

Oh, and one more detail: Cadillac man is an actor, an impression of an American. Ford lady? She's real. 

Another admirer is Patrick George at Jalopnik, where a headline calls the ad "Ford's Takedown:":

I like it better because its subject, a Ford C-Max driver, does actual things, rather than rave about why it's awesome that we take fewer vacation days than the rest of the world.

Related coverage at Deadline Detroit:

Video: 'Ballsy' Cadillac Ad That Aired During Oscars Stirs Debate About Its Politics


Read more:  YouTube


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