When companies go all-in on America as a brand
Plus the power of "Roundball Rock" ... and a look at the celebrity documentary industrial complex.
I had the TV on the other day while I was doing something else, which means I was only half paying attention. But my head snapped up when a car commercial came on. The ad copy stopped me cold.
This is how it ran in its entirety. The voiceover is delivered with full-tilt bombast:
Americans. We can do anything we want.
Except one thing. We just can’t stop being … American.
So get out there, take your swing, rev your engines and let freedom ring.
And never, ever, EVER stop being American.
Nothing stops America.
The messaging is accompanied by images of a man skydiving while holding an enormous American flag; pickup trucks doing donuts; a bald eagle; fighter jets expelling plumes of red, white and blue. Underscoring the whole thing is an electric guitar playing “The Star Bangled Banner.”
It’s a commercial for Dodge Ram trucks (which I keep misspelling as “Doge,” so do with that what you will). The campaign is called “Never Stop Being American,” as defined by the ad’s Don Draper-ish patriotic fever dream.
Here’s a longer version.
That’s not the one that I saw, though. And the condensed version is really … something.
Over-the-top truck commercials are nothing new. They’re formulated around the idea that this is what a man drives, and I suppose if one is susceptible to that kind of pitch, well … the problems were there already.
But this commercial is doing more than that. Especially now.
Though it was unveiled in June, this was my first time encountering it and I have so many thoughts about the subtext.
Americans. We can do anything we want.
I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that sounds like a threat.
It certainly sums up the frustrations people outside the United States have with this country, which acts like it can do anything it wants on the world stage.
But there’s an even subtler idea at play: “We can do anything we want” suggests laws don’t apply to the ad’s intended audience.
So, we (“we”) can do anything we want.
Except one thing. We just can’t stop being … American.
What does “being American” even mean in this context — aside from “we can do anything we want”? Apparently nothing. Regardless, anyone wanting a change to the status quo should just pack it in. Didn’t you hear the man? We just can’t stop, whether you like it or not.
It reminds me of the language used by people hyping AI saying a version of “it’s here to stay, get used to it.” Or as cryptocurrency skeptic David Gerard recently put it: “Herpes is here to stay too, but you probably wouldn’t brag about it.”
Back to the Ram spot:
Never, ever, EVER stop being American.
Now, this is funny because it’s a contradiction. I thought the thrust of the commercial was “we just can’t stop being American.” But saying “never, ever, EVER stop” suggests this idea of what it means to be American is not set in stone and might, in fact, be a little wobbly? So the messaging goes from “this is a fait accompli!” to a more sweatily panicked “I need to implore you with an extra ‘ever’!”
To close it out:
“Nothing stops America.”
We’re back to fait accompli language, over footage of those fighter jets. That combination of words and visuals is more or less a Rorschach test in terms of how you feel about America’s use of military might over the last 70 years.
The ad came out months ago — “old” by media cycle standards — so who cares?
Let’s consider the context in which the ad is airing. Right now, terrifying violence is happening to people in America at the hands of the American government, inflicted primarily on those who don’t have sufficient whatever to deem them “American.” It’s also being meted out on people who are protesting, or even just filming what is happening.
Our neighbors are being disappeared and a small handful of people are getting rich off it. Here’s a primer on “billionaire oligarchs and corporations profiting from ICE’s deportation machine.”
There are so many other distressing examples of “we can do anything we want” happening each day. One could argue the demolition of the the East Wing of the White House earlier this week (“despite lacking approval for construction from the federal agency that oversees such projects,” according to one report) was done specifically to drive this idea home.
One could argue Ram’s “Never Stop Being American” ad tacitly embraces and endorses all of the above. If nothing else, the “we can do anything we want” messaging feels loaded in this context.
So this idea of what is or isn’t “American” is worth interrogating, especially when it’s part of a marketing campaign that TV networks are happy to air.
A recent conversation between New York Times columnists Jamelle Bouie and Tressie McMillan Cottom focused on the way iconography of the South is reflected in what is more broadly sold to us as “American.” Bouie notes that this is signaled by specific markers: “It’s a certain kind of country music. It’s a certain kind of pickup truck.”
A certain kind of pickup truck.
Bouie’s observation about music is on point as well, and I’m going to tie it back to television. The musical portions of this year’s Emmy broadcast in September featured wall-to-wall country artists for seemingly no reason, except that it was apparently someone’s idea of what would play as … well, “American.”
He also talks about the South representing a certain kind of fantasy for the middle class, where “you have an opportunity to use your wealth, for lack of a better term, to dominate other people. You can have a big compound in the middle of Texas and drive a gigantic vehicle and use all the resources you’d like and boss people around.”
McMillan Cottom calls it the “Yellowstone”-ification of the country.
All of this imagery on our televisions is doing a lot more work than simply providing entertainment. Or selling vehicles.
OK, fine. So what?
I’m not surprised an automaker would go this route.
By the way, I haven’t even mentioned the driving of it all. Of course an ad for trucks is going to emphasize driving.
But more generally, the imagery we’re fed on a regular basis is so car-centric that you might forget that preferring to ride one’s bike or walk or wanting robust public transportation is also American. Just not the “right” kind of American for these purposes.
When companies go all-in on America as a brand, we should pay attention to what kind of ideas they’re actually selling.
It’s not all that different from the Sydney Sweeney American Eagle ad. And no, concerns about that were not all made up.
I’m sure we’ll see more of this kind of thing. As USA Today recently reported about Steak ‘n Shake:
In a bid to “proudly support American values and traditions,” the Indianapolis-based burger chain announced [that] … “Every Steak ‘n Shake is getting the tallest and biggest American flag that local governments will allow!”
The biggest flags! Because that … means something! (Narrator: It does not mean something.)
But there is perhaps a Freudian joke in there about the inadequacies of whoever thought up and signed off on the idea. Why USA Today bothered to uncritically report on it is dubious as well.
Music matters
Switching gears …
The NBA’s return to NBC this season also marks the return of “Roundball Rock” — or “ba ba ba ba ba basketball,” as it was immortalized in a 2013 “Saturday Night Live” sketch. The iconic music accompanied the network’s game coverage from 1990 to 2002.
The composer is former “Entertainment Tonight” host John Tesh, who apparently never passes up an opportunity to perform the song. I don’t blame him! It’s catchy and people like it. Most musicians would kill to write something that becomes this deeply embedded in pop culture. And (presumably) financially remunerative.
I bring this up because last year I wrote a column about the television industry mostly abandoning theme songs and why I think this is such a mistake. (You can read that here.)
These are logos in audio form and they serve a legitimate purpose. “Roundball Rock” is a great example of how music becomes associated with a certain piece of programming, creating an emotional response from viewers. The music creates a sense of occasion. The same is true of the classic Monday Night Football theme, called “Heavy Action.”
By the way, I don’t watch basketball. Or football. And there isn’t someone in my home watching, either. But somehow, both songs have crossed over that barrier to become part of my pop cultural awareness. I doubt I’m alone in that. This is a major accomplishment. Are you kidding? People who don’t even watch your thing recognize the musical branding around it? That’s successful, effective marketing.
I’ll give you another example. Years ago, it used to be exciting when one of the TV networks aired a movie that had been in theaters only a few months earlier, and there were distinctive bumpers to introduce these broadcasts. ABC’s is one of my favorites. Talk about a sense of occasion! I hear this music and think: Sit your ass down, you’re about to see a movie, baby. One with stars and made by Hollywood talents who know how to put a film together for maximum entertainment value!
Executives should want this kind of shorthand. In the old days, they use to call it … branding.
Maybe a sense of occasion is harder to conjure when we’re mostly watching everything on-demand via streaming.
A few shows still do theme songs, and some are quite good. But for the most part, opening credits have been reduced down to a title card and maybe a bar or two of music.
I even miss ad jingles — annoying ear worms that they were — which have all but disappeared. (The one exception is that horrid “You rule” ad campaign for Burger King and, my word, that jingle is the worst and has actually made me hate Burger King, so congratulations?)
Minus catchy music — minus anthems, really — the TV landscape feels so much more barren and unmemorable.
The trouble with celebrity documentaries
Celebrity documentaries pumped out by streaming platforms are commonly made at the behest of (or at least, with the cooperation of) the subjects themselves. As a result, they become exercises in celebrity image management, stripped of anything too complicated or unexpected.
For the Tribune, I looked at several that premiered this month, the best of which is Apple’s five-part “Mr. Scorsese,” which is exhaustive look back at Martin Scorsese’s career, and to a lesser degree, his personal life. It is thoughtful and absorbing … and perhaps too admiring:
Scorsese is interviewed at length and he's a good talker. A detailed talker. Quick to laugh. He’s likable! You come away with a better understanding of his films and the different periods he was working in. But there's no sense of discovery when he responds to [director Rebecca] Miller’s questions; you get the sense these are stories he's told himself, about himself, for a very long time. It's all very friendly. He's not challenged on anything. Neither is the viewer.
A sharply thrown elbow or two isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you’re trying to shake someone from the personal lore they’ve settled on. That may not have been Miller’s goal, but it’s the kind of energy that’s conspicuously missing — and needed.
You can read my column here.