Blogger
Last night, Ram ran a commercial during the Super Bowl that featured audio of a Martin Luther King Jr. sermon overlaid onto footage of its trucks. While corporations are constantly pandering to viewers with empty imagery and over-the-top messaging, this ad was completely unforgivable. Ram’s cynical misuse of Dr. King’s words shows just how egregiously far corporations are willing to go to promote the best-in-class trucks that Americans deserve.
It’s disgusting to the core that Ram would debase the sacred words of Martin Luther King Jr., a man who fought valiantly for the civil rights of all Americans, all for the sake of advertising a top-tier American-made truck that makes no compromises on quality or dependability. The oblivious, money-hungry executives at Ram apparently didn’t think that the public would call them out for distorting MLK’s courageous and moving words about racial equality and human rights just to promote a pickup truck with a legendary 6.4L V-8 engine and a well-deserved legacy of excellence. What an utterly vile way to showcase the unbelievable towing power of a truck that’s simply unmatched in its class for both sheer muscle and overall performance.
As soon as that commercial aired during the second quarter of the Super Bowl and shamelessly commandeered Dr. King’s status as a national icon to peddle the top-of-the-line pickups every American needs to get the job done right, viewers everywhere were absolutely livid, and rightfully so. How is it possible that not a single person at Ram realized how insensitive and tone-deaf it would be to commandeer the words of a civil rights leader just to move units on a five-time winner of Consumer Guide’s Best Buy Award that was also named Best Full-Size Pickup Truck of 2017 by the Texas Auto Writers Association?
To add insult to injury, in the very same sermon that Ram exploited to hock its all-star vehicle with 410 horsepower, Dr. King goes on to criticize the evils of corporate greed and capitalism. If this American hero knew that his legacy of anti-consumerism and racial equality was being subverted just to manipulate hardworking Americans into paying as little as $309 a month for 36 months with 0 percent APR financing, he would be deeply, profoundly horrified.
By running that Super Bowl commercial last night, Ram’s executives have shown themselves to be nothing more than craven, profit-hungry monsters who are willing to stop at nothing to sell the American people an unmatched luxury pickup boasting a trailer-towing capacity of nearly 12,000 pounds. Co-opting the work of a civil rights hero to sell a world-class vehicle that seamlessly combines power and luxury into a one-of-a-kind hauling machine that any American would be proud to own is despicable. Ram should be ashamed of itself.
