It's Halftime in America

Half the fun of watching the Super Bowl is for the commercials. Companies spend millions of dollars on 30 seconds of airtime to cash in on the huge percentage of Americans glued to their television screens. Commercials can be witty, weird or just plain dull but one that caught my attention was Chrysler's half time spot. It only aired once, before the half time show, when most people are watching.

The commercial featured the gravelly voice of Clint Eastwood, first describing the two football teams discussing their plays for the next half of the game. He then goes on to talk about how America is in a similar situation: we've survived the financial crisis of 2008 and are now getting ready to build for a better "second half".

It reminded me of Obama's recent State of the Union speech. Obama spoke about our hardships as a country, the problems we face now, but most of the the speech was focused on potential plans for a better future. Encouraging businesses to bring back jobs to the the U.S. and stop outsourcing was a major plot point. There was immense patriotism and empowerment in his speech as he repeated that, if given the chance, America would always win.

Chrysler's commercial mirrored the optimism of Obama's patriotic speech, focusing specifically on the city of Detroit and how the auto industry is coming back after years of hardship.

Clint says of Americans, "we find a way through tough times and if we can't find a way, we make one". This patriotic sentiment is one of those 'core American values' that we've built our country on, that even after war and economic disaster, we have always been able to come back fighting. Without being politically bias, this hits home with every American that watched the Super Bowl.

The last image of the commercial were the words, "Imported From Detroit" which immediately harkens back to Obama's encouragement to bring business back to the U.S. When most of our goods are manufactured elsewhere, there's pride in anything that's made on our own soil by our own people. Chrysler targeted that patriotic pride and strategically named itself the "Made in America" car company through this commercial.

What other commercials did you see that targeted patriotic sentiments? What other strategies did the ads use?