With waving American flags and dialogue from Harrison Ford about freedom and friendliness, Jeep’s two-minute Super Bowl ad had the hallmarks of yet another pep talk to a deeply divided country from an automaker known for making big statements with its Big Game ads, which in the past have featured the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Clint Eastwood and Eminem.

But the marketing executive behind all those ads, Stellantis Global Chief Marketing Officer Olivier François, stressed in an interview that this year’s ad was less about commenting on American political and social culture and more about celebrating Jeep culture and its range of vehicles.

It is about the “possibility for people to choose what makes them happy,” he said about the ad, which was made in-house and directed by James Mangold and produced by Minted Content. “So it’s expressed through this freedom of deciding for yourself what you need, what fits your lifestyle, or life stage.”

Interwoven throughout Ford’s dialogue—in which he touches on everything from heroism to humility—are scenes of Jeeps rumbling along a California mountainside, including vehicles powered by loud roaring gas engines as well as quieter plug-in hybrids.

“Freedom is the roar of one man’s engine and the silence of another’s,” Ford says in a line that attempts to draw parallels between personal life choices and automotive buying preferences. Vehicles shown in the ad include a gas-powered Jeep Wrangler, a Jeep Wrangler 4xe plug-in hybrid and an all-electric Jeep Recon. 

The business objective is to show Jeep as offering powertrain choices at a time when automakers are having to balance investing massive amounts of money in electric vehicles while satisfying a huge chunk of buyers who still prefer gas. Stellantis had a similar goal with its Ram ad, which ran in the second quarter and came from GSD&M. That spot took a much different tone, using humor and special effects-laden driving scenes with actor Glen Powell starring in a truck-fueled twist on “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”

With the Jeep ad, François wanted something more “intimate, very quiet, more thoughtful,” he said.

In a game mostly full of silly and loud ads, the calmer approach had a good chance of standing out for fans who were still watching in the fourth quarter with the Eagles up by 31 points by the time the commercial ran. What is less certain is how viewers received Ford’s monologue, especially his musings on freedom and cordiality in an era marked by political division and acrimony.

Defining freedom

Freedom has become an especially politically charged word, often meaning different things to Republicans and Democrats. Kamala Harris in her presidential campaign repeatedly used “freedom” in speeches and ads in an attempt to connect it to progressive priorities after years in which the GOP had seemingly controlled the phrase in a political context related to limited government. Donald Trump, of course, won the election, appealing to more voters with his brash, say-anything style that is anything but cordial.

In the Jeep ad, called “Owner’s Manual,” Ford talks about freedom in a more personal context, as he sips from a coffee cup beside a roaring fire inside a mountain cabin. “Life doesn’t come with an owner’s manual,” he says in the ad. “But that means we get to write our own stories,” suggesting freedom is “yes, or no, or maybe.”

From there, the dialogue shifts to address broader topics such as humility and heroism. “There are real heroes in the world, but not the ones in the movies,” says the 82-year-old actor known for roles in the Indiana Jones and Star Wars film franchises. The ad features archival footage of Jeeps used in World War II, quickly shows an old photograph of him on a movie set and then shifts to a modern-day soldier greeting his child.

Jeep is “a brand that was sent to Europe, to free Europe,” François said, noting it is routinely ranked as America’s most patriotic brand. So it can live in “whatever political context.”

In one scene, Ford is shown in a Jeep giving a quick two-fingered wave to another Jeep driver. “You don’t have to be friends with someone, to wave at ’em,” he says, later adding that “our differences can be our strength.” 

That sounds a bit like the message Jeep tried sending with its 2022 Springsteen Super Bowl ad, called “The Middle,” which was also two minutes and made a call for national unity including with a symbolic setting at the geographic center of America in a chapel in Kansas. 

When asked if this year’s ad was trying to make a similar statement, François suggested the two-fingered wave was more of a shoutout to the Jeep community. There is a tradition of Jeep drivers waving at each other on the road; an extensive etiquette is involved with the so-called “Jeep wave.”

At the end of the spot, Jeep takes a not-so-polite dig at one of its competitors. Ford encourages viewers to “choose what makes you happy,” adding “this Jeep makes me happy, even though my name is Ford,” as he quietly mouths the name of the maker of Broncos and F-150 pickups.

Beating the L.A. wildfires—behind the script and the shoot

When Stellantis first engaged with Ford he was presented ideas from the automaker’s agencies, but François said Ford’s entourage was “pushing back” on the ideas. So “in a moment of desperation,” François said he presented Ford a script he had written with a friend of his who is a retired marketer whom he declined to name. Then, François said, the automaker’s agencies, including Highdive and Doner, helped tweak the script, as did Mangold, whose directing credits include the 2023 film “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” in which Ford starred.

Ford, in a statement said: “I said ‘yes’ to doing this commercial because of the script. It’s a very straightforward communication about life, and ends with getting in a Jeep vehicle, that’s the hook. It didn’t require me to reintroduce myself, point to the fact that in my life I’ve been many things, and known for specific projects or roles. It’s just a quiet talk from somebody sharing an idea. I love the way it developed.”

The Ram and Jeep ads are François’s 34th and 35th Super Bowl commercials, but the Jeep ad is Stellantis’ first Big Game spot made in-house, he said. It includes an original score, “Go Anywhere,” that was written and performed by Sony Music Publishing artist Nathaniel Murphy specifically for the spot. 

The production did not come easy. “We created this whole piece very late in the process,” François said during an interview last week from Los Angeles. He interrupted the interview once to suggest editing tweaks to the team. It was filmed in Santa Clarita, California, just as the Los Angeles-area wildfires were starting to spread. The team finished the shoot in two days and three days later the area in which it was filmed was shut down. “Harrison himself had been evacuated. The director evacuated. The producer lost his house,” François said.

He credited the team’s “incredibly resilient spirit … because the show must go on.”