The theme of the latest Jeep campaign for the revised Cherokee is “America’s Original Influencer,” featuring the all-time classic “Mama Said Knock You Out” from LL Cool J. I have no issue with either the new Cherokee or LL Cool J. I wish them both the best. This campaign is somehow offensive to me on many levels, both articulatable and not.
Am I the only one here? It’s fine if I’m the only one. So much of modern advertising has a stock photo/AI-generated sheen to it that it means basically nothing and typically evokes no emotion. This is stirring a feeling in me, even if that feeling is: Wow, I wish they hadn’t done this.
You can look at it and tell me if you care at all, or if you think I’m just complaining about something so that I have something to complain about:
On the surface, there’s nothing particularly wrong with it. Is the Jeep Cherokee the original American influencer? No. It’s not even the original influencer in the Jeep stable. That would be the Wrangler. It’s an advertisement, and as Joe Isuzu made clear, advertising is not to be factually believed.
That’s not what irks me most. Nor is it the weird edit where it goes…
Don’t call it a comeback, I been here for yearsI’m rockin’ my peers, puttin’ suckers in fear
…but it drops the second half of the verse, leaving this uncomfortable phantom limb feeling for the rest of the video.
(Embarrassing admission: For a longer period of time than I’ll fess up to here, I thought he was rapping “I’m rocking my penis” instead of “peers,” which would definitely put some suckers in fear.)
Even if you accept that advertising is an inherently compromised medium for truth-telling, the actual boast is kind of weird for the current vehicle. Stellantis/FCA/Chrysler/Long John Silvers/DaimlerChrysler/Whatever is on its 400th comeback, so it is fair to call it that. Perhaps it needs to pretend like the new Cherokee will live up to the legendary XJ to effectuate such a comeback, but it won’t be like an XJ, and that’s actually fine.
The new Cherokee doesn’t need to be the classic XJ. It’s an attractive, hopefully affordable hybrid crossover in a category where Jeep desperately needs to be competitive.
Because of this likelihood, what bothers me most is all the Jeep Cherokee KL erasure. Other than some welcome aesthetic improvements, the new Cherokee is far more like the KL than it is anything like the XJ or the two-door ’70 SJ also featured in these ads.
Again, that’s fine by me! The KL was a dramatic improvement in ride quality, safety, efficiency, and all the other factors necessary to make it a success in the market. It also had a TrailHawk version capable of better-than-average offroading for a crossover.
The best version of Jeep, arguably, was the Sergio-era FCA, where you had an always-good Jeep Wrangler at the top, a stout Grand Cherokee, and a bunch of affordable softroaders in various classes that were not built to go off-road but could if you ever really wanted to climb a mountain with your Renegade.
That’s exactly what Jeep needs and, arguably, what this new Cherokee is doing. Dressing it up in retro is just kind of off-putting. Again, no disrespect to Mr Cool James, whom the ladies still love.
Top photo: Jeep
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