The Car Brand That Says: ‘We Don’t Make Jeep. You Do'
Some brands have advocates who sing praises without being asked, and this is certainly one of them. Jeep, in its latest campaign, let its community take the wheel as it amplified the stories of real-life car owners who can’t help but tell you about why they fell in love with their vehicle.
'Ariana', 'Tornado', 'RockRusher' – the names of beloved cars – and their owners, came together to create a mosaic of stories for the brand, each one telling a personal tale of adventure. The real, unscripted life content is composed of homemade videos and photos shot on smartphones and GoPros, by real people, rather than production specialists.
The meticulous process required tight collaboration between the teams at Jeep and Publicis, as well as all of the creators who got involved. But beyond all of that, the spirit and human nature of the campaign is what has really resonated with the Jeep community, as the automobile company continues to nurture that free spirit.
Publicis Middle East’s executive creative director Tuki Ghiassi and creative director Anton Marais speak to LBB’s Nisna Mahtani about Jeep’s values and how they came together in this spot.
LBB> The Jeep community is at the heart of its brand and also the central focus of this campaign. Can you talk us through the decision to reflect on the personal stories of these cars?
Tuki & Anton> Jeep has a thriving community of outdoor enthusiasts. We estimate there are around 20,000 of these individuals in the region who gather over weekends and holidays to go off-roading. Across the region, there are Jeep clubs that haven’t been created by the brand but have simply been set up by people who love the brand. They spend a great deal of effort on customising their vehicles and giving them names. We wanted to do a campaign that showed the world what makes Jeep different, and that is their people.
LBB> How do these personal stories tie into the ethos of the Jeep brand? What element does community play?
Tuki & Anton> Jeep’s tagline is ‘There’s Only One’. Historically, this was meant to position Jeep as the ultimate 4x4. But today it has a whole new meaning. Its community brings a new dimension to the brand positioning. Jeep isn’t only one car. Jeep is thousands of cars, modified and personalised by their owners. There’s only one ‘Yellow Submarine’, one ‘Ariana’, and one ‘Tornado’. Each of these Jeep SUVs has a unique name, a unique story, unique mud splashes and scratches, and a unique personality.
LBB> You describe the campaign as a mosaic of stories from all over the world, featuring many different experiences from seven different countries. How did you come across each of the Jeep enthusiasts you featured?
Tuki & Anton> We followed two routes to meet as many Jeep enthusiasts as we could.
Many Jeep clubs have been set up by Jeep enthusiasts. These clubs are completely independent and not affiliated with the brand in any way, but we have a strong relationship with the club owners. We contacted the club owners directly and pitched the idea of a co-creation project. They were all incredibly inspired and excited to be part of the campaign. They shared the invitation with their respective networks, which allowed us to tap into thousands more people to collect raw content from Jeep community members.
We also scoured social media for weeks to find content that featured interesting and unique Jeep 4x4s. Our producers then reached out to the content owners one by one to pitch the project to them, get them excited, get their approval and obtain the original footage.
LBB> Talk us through the process of supporting these micro-influencers who went on to showcase their journeys. What were the logistics of making this happen?
Tuki & Anton> Bringing the campaign to life was a meticulous process that required very tight collaboration internally between everyone in the agency, but also between the agency and all the Jeep community members. It wasn’t a conventional production process. We were working with people outside our industry who didn’t have experience, who didn’t always check their email, and who were often only available on weekends.
Our producers persevered and after hundreds of meetings, we ultimately ended up with thousands and thousands of videos and photos of Jeep 4x4s of every kind. We poured through all of them to identify the most unique-looking vehicles. We had to discard a lot of content that was simply not up to par. Keep in mind that the content had not been shot by professional directors. These were homemade videos and photos shot on smartphones and GoPros in the great outdoors in harsh conditions.
After identifying the most interesting vehicles, we conducted hours of interviews with the owners to shape our understanding of their love for the Jeep brand and also for their vehicles. Keep in mind that these aren’t micro-influencers as we know them. Most of these people don’t have many followers and are not trained to shoot good-quality content. These are regular people who happen to love the brand. We simply placed their content at the forefront of our campaign and we placed their social handles on all our visuals.
This essentially turned each social profile into a Jeep showroom. Their organic content suddenly became Jeep-branded content. Instead of them promoting Jeep, as influencers would normally do, we promoted them. Individually they had a small following. Together they had a reach higher than our competitors combined.
LBB> The campaign feels like a love letter to the brand as well as the individual cars which represent the human driving them. How do you evoke this feeling through the visuals, especially when working with user-generated content?
Tuki & Anton> Homemade content by its very nature has emotion. It’s a moment in time captured by a person who wants to immortalise that memory forever. Of course, not all the content pieces we collected were good quality, but they were shot with intention. So it was a strong starting point for us.
Once we had the content together, we needed to marry that with a strong script and music to create the magic. Editing played a big part, and we are very grateful that we had a great editor on board. On the surface, the film looks like a collage of random video clips stitched together, but it was actually a massive task to tell a visual story that complemented the script, while also ensuring that the various UGC clips visually connected.
LBB> Perhaps the most striking element, alongside the visuals, is the narration which underpins the story. What was the process of creating the copy for this and who was the voice who brings it to life?
Tuki & Anton> We conducted hours of interviews with each of the shortlisted ‘Jeepers’ to learn everything we could about their cars. On a functional level, we wanted to understand what modifications had been made, but the most interesting discovery was the emotional connections these people had with their cars. In the process, we found that many owners give their Jeep a unique name, which they choose based on a personality they believe the vehicle to possess.
Sometimes the vehicle is an extension of the driver’s personality, and sometimes the vehicle takes on a life of its own. This helped to reshape our initial idea and resulted in the campaign you see today. These authentic stories shaped the film script especially. It helped us to bring a richer dimension to the campaign mantra, ‘We don’t make Jeep. You do’. Our clients were bold enough to put out a campaign that admitted Jeep isn’t only made by a company... It’s made by adventurers.
Who was the voice? This is an LBB exclusive… We used AI. When we first presented the concept to the client, we did an internal recording with AI and we added the walkie-talkie effect. The intention was always to redo the VO with Jeep community members. Unfortunately, they are not professional VO artists, so when we got to the recording studio, they ironically didn’t manage to replicate what the AI did. So, along with the client, we made the collective decision to stick to the original recording.
LBB> Championing real life and moving away from the glossy, sleek commercials from other car brands, why is it important to the brand to go for an untraditional, unscripted feel?
Tuki & Anton> One of Jeep’s core values is authenticity. This campaign speaks directly to that. All car makers put out commercials and key visuals that show shiny, new cars shot at traditional three-quarter angles. But Jeep isn’t about looking pretty. It’s about dirt, mud, rocks, scratches, dents and stories to tell. It might be a bold thing to say, but we feel only Jeep could put out a campaign like this. Jeep is more than a machine. It comes to life when someone gets behind the steering wheel and takes it on an adventure. Adventure, by its very nature, implies a journey during which anything could happen. Using UGC made the entire campaign spontaneous and authentic.
LBB> Given that the Jeep brand is all about community, how has it been received by the audience so far?
Tuki & Anton> The audience has absolutely loved it, starting with our core audience, which is the existing Jeep community. We were overwhelmed by the positive response. Even after the campaign had launched, we still received requests from community members to participate. We’ve also seen people creating their own key visuals at home to feel part of our campaign. Beyond that, the Jeep clubs have seen their numbers grow, while the WhatsApp groups have also become more active. We’re excited to see how all this translates into vehicle upgrades and sales to newcomers to the Jeep brand.
LBB> Can you share some of the unexpected stories you came across during the process?
Tuki & Anton> We were blown away by some of the stories. An interesting one is of a woman named Kate and her Jeep Gladiator called ‘Tornado’. We discovered that she and Tornado were on a road trip from Dubai to China and back again. She customised her Gladiator so she and her partner could comfortably live in it for 18 months. She arrived in China in January and is on her way back to Dubai as we speak.
Another Jeep enthusiast featured in our campaign is Junaid, and his Wrangler called ‘Ariana’. You will not believe the effort and time he has invested in his car. He absolutely fell in love with his Jeep and the Jeep lifestyle. He’s a product manager, but his passion is his car. He creates the most amazing content about his adventures. He taught himself how to shoot and edit, and his content became a great source of inspiration for our project.
LBB> What is the brand focused on when it comes to future campaigns and the long-term strategy? What can we expect to see in the future?
Tuki & Anton> As the category in which Jeep plays becomes denser with competitors, we’ll need to play more into the core DNA of the brand. Authenticity will be key. You’ll also see new innovations. Jeep is increasingly focusing on the quality of its interior to improve the driving experience, so it’ll communicate about that in the future.
