Bruce Springsteen finally takes the ad man’s dollar
‘He’s not for sale. He’s not for rent.’ So lamented one marketing executive in 2018 after Bruce Springsteen rebuffed yet another approach.
“He’s not for sale. He’s not for rent. And there’s nothing you have that he wants.” So lamented one marketing executive in 2018 after Bruce Springsteen rebuffed yet another approach.
Across a career spanning five decades, the musician known as The Boss has followed a strict rule: no advertisements, no endorsements. At the age of 71, however, Springsteen has lifted his own embargo, surprising fans by agreeing to front a cinematic Jeep commercial that has become an instant viral sensation.
The two-minute advert was unveiled during the Super Bowl, the biggest event in the American television calendar. Although created to sell cars, the advert is couched as a hymn to American unity in divided times, a factor that was crucial in convincing the Born to Run rocker to appear.
“We need the middle. We just have to remember the very soil we stand on is common ground,” Springsteen narrates, over footage of snowy countryside around Lebanon, Kansas, the geographical centre of the US. “Our light has always found its way through the darkness. And there’s hope on the road up ahead.”
Springsteen is shown driving the icy roads, entering a chapel and lighting a candle. Visual references to Jeep are brief and subtle; viewers could be forgiven for not realising they were watching an ad. The New Jersey-born singer has always prided himself on his blue-collar values and what changed his mind is not entirely clear.
Advertising sources said a celebrity of Springsteen’s standing could command upwards of $US5m ($6.49m) for a brand campaign, although, with a personal fortune estimated at $500m, he does not need the cash.
Jon Landau, Springsteen’s manager, said his client genuinely liked the concept for the ad, titled The Middle, which ends with the tagline “To The ReUnited States of America”.
Springsteen is a lifelong Democrat but his working-class fanbase has trended towards Donald Trump, making him the ideal person to front an appeal for national healing.
Olivier Francois, chief marketing officer at Stellantis, the multinational that owns Jeep, had been pursuing the star for a decade, pitching ideas without success.
Springsteen’s belated approval for The Middle — he only agreed to take part in January — took the car manufacturer by surprise. It scrambled a crew to film the ad in Kansas the weekend before last and negotiated with CBS, the network that broadcasts the Super Bowl, to secure an extended two-minute commercial break slot.
“This is the triumph of perseverance and stubbornness,” Mr Francois told Variety magazine. He was the same executive who complained that Springsteen was “not for rent” in 2018.
Within hours of being posted on YouTube the ad had been streamed 24 million times, in addition to the estimated 100 million Super Bowl viewers who saw it live. Fans appeared split on whether The Boss’s reputation had been sullied by the corporate tie-up. NJ Arts, a culture website in New Jersey, argued that “if he has sold out, he has done so in the least objectionable way possible”.
The Times
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