Adventures in Marketing: Ford Bronco Goes Into the Wild
A 1970 Dodge ad campaign once said of the viewer, “If you can cope with a whole new image, you could be Dodge material.” Well, today — a week out from what this writer has dubbed B-Day — Ford is appealing to those wild at heart to leave their old lifestyles, and the pavement, in the past.
Are you Built Wild?
You’d better be, otherwise that new Bronco will leave you in the dust.
Shown running alongside a pack of wild horses and plowing through snow, mud, and dirt with the help of massive, balloon-like all-terrain tires, Ford’s returning body-on-frame off-roader officially debuts July 13th, though the automaker saw fit to generate early buzz via a spot titled “Built Wild.” There’s canyons and pines and people with backpacks and a bearded guy sitting next to a campfire (over which he presumably just roasted a squirrel). The husky-voiced narrator once took a shot at Wyatt Earp.
At one point, we see a group of fit older Millennials running through the woods at night towards a luminous object. Nothing spooky about that.
Describing Bronco not as a vehicle but as a brand, Ford announced the creation of four “Off-Roadeo outdoor adventure playgrounds” located somewhere in the U.S. (but probably not Delaware) to give new owners and Bronco intenders the full-on adventure experience they so crave. With Bronco, you’re not just driving an SUV — you’re a member of a community. That’s right: Bronco Nation.
It’s like Saturn, only with less plastic and more campfire stories. Don that flannel and learn to be a better off-roader, fellas and gals.
More by Steph Willems
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If they didn't hire Sam Elliot to narrate this, there was a huge opportunity missed.
Huh... “You can make the mistake with a family of vehicles if you just start peppering that family with things that don’t live up to the core tenets with what it is you’re building,” he said. “Everything we do … it will have to live up to that same DNA and that same goal that the [MUSTANG] has, otherwise it doesn’t belong in the family. We’re not just badge-engineering. It’s not the name that makes the vehicle, it’s the vehicle that makes the name.”