Born of Fire ("Imported from Detroit")
Chrysler2011
Born of Fire, better known as “Imported from Detroit”, is a 2011 two-minute television commercial for Chrysler, created by Wieden+Kennedy, Portland.
The line
Imported from Detroit.
Why it works
A bankrupt car company from a written-off city bought the longest Super Bowl ad to that point — two full minutes during Super Bowl XLV, February 6, 2011 — and spent it on defiance rather than product. Eminem drives a Chrysler 200 through Detroit to the Fox Theatre as a narrator asks what a town that's "been to hell and back" knows about luxury, closing: "This is the Motor City. And this is what we do." Watched by 111 million people, it is studied for turning a brand's greatest liability (Detroit, bailouts, decline) into its entire argument, for civic storytelling as commercial strategy, and for the nerve of its media buy. It won the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Commercial in 2011, and "Imported from Detroit" became a rallying cry beyond the brand.
Techniques
- Card stacking Turns the brand's biggest liabilities, a written-off city, bailouts and decline, into its whole argument for luxury that has been to hell and back.
- Transfer Wraps the Chrysler 200 in Detroit's identity as the Motor City, so the car inherits the defiant pride of a town that refuses to be written off.
- Testimonial and endorsement Eminem drives the Chrysler 200 through Detroit to the Fox Theatre, so the star himself embodies the defiant comeback the car stands for.
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