America, the brand
: I just saw the most remarkable piece of product placement/advertising/political positioning. On American Dreams, teen soldier JJ returns home with just a damaged leg and psyche and his hard-ass father gives him a car: a Mustang.
Cut to the commercial, the only one in the hour: A modern-day soldier returns home, presumably from Iraq. The story is stretched out as his kid brother drives him and his mom home (in a Ford) and the soldier has to wait for his father, who has some issues. Finally, the father returns, driving his own Mustang, the same vintage as the one we just saw in the ’60s American Dreams. The father talks about his return; if he’s not JJ, he’s an ’00 proxy. And this father gives his son a car. You guessed it: a Mustang. “We at Ford wish everyone in the Armed Forces a safe return home,” the chyron says. “For your service, you have our gratitude.”
I have no idea whether this is brilliant advertising or brilliant exploitation.
(But as we know, Ford/Lincoln/Mercury is a red-state brand.)
