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Interesting people, insightful points of view and incredible stories on what’s popping and not popping in marketing, tech, and culture you can use to win immediately. Brands, Beats and Bytes boldly stands at the intersection of brand, tech and culture. DC and Larry are fascinated with stories and people behind some of the best marketing in the business. No matter how dope your product, if your marketing sucks your company may suck too. #dontsuck
DC: Brand Nerds. Brand Nerds. Brand Nerds. Back at you Brands, Beats and Bytes podcasts, live and direct. This is a What's Popping episode, uh, lt.
And you know how we do it on what's popping? It's like what's happening right now in the marketplace that we have an opinion about. And this one, Brand Nerds, we don't like to date these, but this is October of 2025. A brand and automobile by the name of Jeep Grand Wagoneer just dropped something interesting and we are going to chop that up, LT.
LT: Yo. Yeah, good setup. D So as you mentioned, this is about, uh, Jeep Grand Wagoneer for their their 2026 edition, and we thought it would be great to share our thoughts, Brand Nerds, because it is rife. With brand, brand positioning and marketing implications. So here's the backdrop. So, uh, the headline is Jeep uses off-color humor to reveal their 2026 Grand Wagoneer Jeep.
So they're a bit of a headline that they wrote. Can a vehicle move from family friendly to sex friendly and use that as its strongest selling point? That's what comedian Iliza Shlesinger. Who's, uh, um, has, who's pretty big on Prime video? She's got a, a show called Different Animal, suggests in a, in Jeep's long form social media spot.
The family, SUV, the long form video. Created in partnership with Chicago based advertising agency High Dive, premiers on Jeep's brand, YouTube. It premiered on October 23rd as dc. We don't like to date these, but this is where we're at in late October with shorter form video content to run across the Jeep brand social media channels on all their social media channels, Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok.
And Shlesinger had a statement where she said, I love that they went for something different and were open to par parodying traditional vehicle reveals the Jeep Grand Wagoneer is beautiful, spacious, and hopefully after seeing this film, there are more babies in the world ready to fill out the three rows.
At the end of the video, a voiceover and text onscreen reveal that the vehicle's pricing starts at just under $65,000. A clear cost statement, perhaps not typical of traditional auto advertising. It's Im, and so there, um, Oliver Francois, the global CMO of Stellantis said quote, it's important to note to note that this video is not meant to be a commercial with traditional Jeep brand language and advertising semantics, but a social media asset to amplify the buzz around the new 2026 Jeep Grand Wagoneers recent reveal.
So that's the setup for it. D, you have any thoughts, first?
DC: I have lots of thoughts, lots and lots and lots of,
LT: Please share
DC: of thoughts. Ah, where to, where to begin. Larry, where to begin?
LT: De before you go ahead, branders, please note we're gonna leave the, uh, the link, um, for this spot in the, uh, in the show notes so you can see what we're talking about.
DC: Okay. Uh, here's my, um. Salvo. This thing is funny.
LT: It is.
DC: It is funny. And one of the last things that you read, there was a quote from Oliver, is it Francois?
LT: Mm-hmm.
DC: Oliver Francois, who's the global CMO of Stellantis. Um, I believe.
LT: Yes.
DC: And he said, this is not meant to be a, um, a TV spot. This is a, what did he call it?
Social media asset? Is that what he described?
LT: That's what he said, yeah.
DC: Social media asset. I want to give Oliver Francois his flowers. 'cause Oliver Francois is the same gentleman who was the author of a campaign. I don't remember the agency. In my agency, brethren and sister, and please forgive me for not remembering you, but back in the day.
Chrysler did a phenomenal campaign that debuted on the Super Bowl, Larry, and the campaign was Imported from Detroit. You remember this thing?
LT: I sure do, and please, please say who voiced that.
DC: Oh, I don't, I don't remember who it was.
LT: None other than Eminem.
DC: Eminem, that's right. Okay. Right. Eminem. I forgot about that.
That's right. M and m.
LT: Which was amazing. That's why I imported from Detroit with Eminem voicing that. Wow.
DC: So this is the same dude, this is the same Oliver Francois dude. I think that's what really launched his career into the stratosphere. So I wanna give respect to, uh, to him on that. That was 2009. So this guy, this brother's been at it for a long time.
LT: Can we also give respect to the Jeep Super Bowl ad with Harrison Ford of most recent?
DC: Oh, yes, that's right. That's that, that, that's another one. Uh, that's another one. So we, we, we, we give our respect. Now I gotta give a, but okay. I'm sorry, Larry. I gotta give a, but.
LT: Yes.
DC: Uh, while it is not a Super Bowl ad, this social media asset is stunty to me.
Stunty? Yes. And stunts to me are, uh, by their very definition of stunt, meant to bring attention to break through the clutter and look at this stunt that's happened so that you could pay attention to the stunt. They are not necessarily designed to build the brand, and he's not saying that it's designed to build the brand.
My challenge is the following. You spent money on this wonderful actor. You got three minutes. This thing is three minutes long.
LT: Yep.
DC: It's funny. You crack up. I wonder how many people leave this thinking about Jeep Wagoneers.
LT: Yeah.
DC: Rather than the, the hilarity of. The, the vehicle to have sex in. That's my first butt, and then I have a second butt.
I'm not quite certain what the brand strategy is here in our business, Larry, brand positioning doctors, we talk about the fact that every company, every brand in the world has to make a decision about their strategy. And they can either make it proactively or they can reactively back into it. And that is, are they going to be an uber brand where everything circulates around the one brand?
Are they gonna be an Uber brand that's like a Nike? Are they gonna be an Uber brand with a sub-brand that's like a Toyota and we're talking toys here? Toyota's the uber brand underneath our Tacoma Tundra Prius Camry. Those are sub-brands that have a little have room to market themselves and position themselves.
In their particular category against a particular audience, but they don't forget the halo of, uh, Toyota. And then the final example are solo brands. That's like a P&G. They don't care whether, you know, Gillette and Tide are both owned by p and g. These brands, they have their own p and ls. They market them as they are independent brands, not necessarily connected to the same company.
Here is where my confusion comes in. This is a piece of content, a social media asset about the Jeep Grand Wagoneer. It is the Grand Wagoneer, a sub-brand of Jeep that they are marketing. I thought.
LT: Yep.
DC: Everything I see in this is Jeep. Everything's Jeep. So I'm, I'm unclear as to, do you want me to be thinking about the Wagoneer or do you want me to be thinking about Jeep?
I'm uncertain from looking at it. I think you want me to be thinking about Jeep. This is if I'm talking to Oliver, uh, and if you want me thinking about Jeep, I'm thinking about the Wrangler as a sub-brand, not the Grand Wagoneer. That's my reaction. But it's funny.
LT: No, it it, it's interesting 'cause as I alluded to in the setup, this has so many implications that, and you set it up great as it relates to uber brand.
Uber brand with sub-brand. This is an uber brand with sub-brand. That's what it is. Right. Um, but we're,
DC: That's what they're supposed to be, I think.
LT: But thank you. What's supposed to be very well said. Right. But what's interesting about it is. The Jeep brand stands so much for Americana and rugged and all these things that that Jeep, that the Jeep brand stands for again, that was so well done in the Harrison Ford spot for the Super Bowl.
Um, and, and those things, the tone of that is pretty, it's serious, it's rugged, it's, yeah, you know, we're gleaning Brand Nerds by the way, what we see outside externally DC and I have been very much involved with many brands that, you know, where we have built the brand positioning internally, and those words never see external, but we understand what's happening internally and then how that becomes consumer facing.
So let's say, we can totally tell you we've never been involved with the underpinnings of what the Jeep brand positioning and also the Wa Grand Wagoneer, um, as the sub-brand, brand positioning. But so what, what I'm gonna say is this, this runs counter to what that Jeep brand is about. Americana. They're putting the flag out.
The first Jeep was a military vehicle. So now you're talking about having, having the, the best car to have sex in, in a, in a grand Wagoneer. It's funny, it's really cool. It grabs your attention, but from the outside looking in, I don't know that that's on brand, that that's on tone. And these things matter.
Brand nerds, it might get your attention. If it's getting your attention for the wrong reasons, then, oh, by the way, they also say, uh, I didn't, I wanna say something else. They actually have a genuine and authentic place where this came from. There was a website called Jalopnik that actually said the Grand Wagoneers, the best car to have sex in.
So that was their tongue in cheek foundation for actually using this. But to me it just doesn't feel like it's on brand.
DC: Larry, I agree with you. There's something that you said multiple times, uh, that I believe illustrates a point, a point that is unique to the auto industry and highly unique to the auto industry.
You said it doesn't align with Jeep. And then you also, you, you reference the Harrison Ford ad that was in Super Bowl in 2024. Uh, actually, no. 2025.
LT: 2025. This year.
DC: 25, right? That was this year. 2025. Yep. What you did not say was Jeep Wrangler when you
LT: Right.
DC: You didn't say Wrangler, you said,
LT: Nope.
DC: You said that knowing we all are thinking about the Wrangler.
LT: Yes.
DC: Here is what has happened with Jeep as a brand. The sub band brand Wrangler has now come to define the entire brand.
LT: Right.
DC: Even though it's a sub-brand. There's one other example of that and it's Porsche.
LT: Yep.
DC: You have the Cayenne, you have the Cayman, you've got the 9, 28 and the nine. Uh, uh, 9 44. But that nine 11 brother,
LT: that's right,
DC: that nine 11 as a subbrand has come to define Porsche as a company, right?
That one variant called the nine 11. And what I think has gone wrong here, to your point, is they believe, I think Jeep is this, it's the uber brand up the of the top, and all the sub-brands are kind of equal. Yeah, they can play with Grand Cherokee, they can play with Wrangler. I mean, excuse me, grand Wagoneer.
They can play with Cherokee, they can play with Wrangler. What I don't think they're getting is that No, no, no. When we think of Jeep, we thinking about no damn Wagoneer. Okay, we're not thinking about a Cherokee, we're thinking about Wrangler. Wrangler. That's what we're thinking about. So, and that's tough and sturdy and all of those things.
Now is it funny? It is funny.
LT: It's funny.
DC: It it, it is funny. I'm not doubting the humor.
LT: Yeah.
DC: I'm saying like what you're saying is from a brand strategy perspective, right? It's off brand. I'm repeating what you're saying now, so I agree with you Larry.
LT: And, and the thing is, and there's one another thing I wanna hit, but segue to that, the thing is Brand Nerds, uh, it really is funny.
It does grab your attention. But we talk about what we do in our business, the brand activation wheel. Mm-hmm. That all the touch points need to be in alignment with what is in the middle, the actual brand. And if it was all in alignment, D why wouldn't they have it? Why wouldn't they put it everywhere on commercials and everything?
They're sort of admitting it's off-brand by saying, ah, we're just gonna tuck it in the corner over here. That's my my view of it. Right? Because if it was really on brand, why wouldn't they show it everywhere?
DC: I don't know that at some point we won't see a 60 second or 30 second of this, but you are correct. Why would they start it over there?
LT: That's my point.
DC: That they They're uncertain. They're unsure, Larry.
LT: Right, right. They're D in their trouble.
DC: They little lack a little confidence.
LT: Well, and that's the point. Brand nerds, you better damn well know what your brand, what, where your brand can stretch to, you know, what are the limitations, the constraints, and what your brand is.
And you shouldn't be dipping your toe in that. You should know that. You should really know that. And this gets to the next point, D, before we, uh, before we escape here, um, is notice they talked about the price. Yeah. $65,000. By the way, that's a lot of money.
DC: It is a lot of money. That's a lot.
LT: It's a lot of money.
DC: Yeah.
LT: And what they were, what they were, um, intimating in some of the articles I read is that. The Grand Wagoneer has becoming even more pricey. So what they're saying actually that $65,000 puts them back not in the, uh, the, the BMW, Mercedes and Porsches of the world mm-hmm. Um, that they're actually playing in, in, in, in the place that, that their brand, that Jeep brand, um, in their view has traditionally played.
I actually, it's interesting. Rented a car when I took Jake to school one of the one of these times, and I got a Grand Wagoneer year. I gotta tell you. I was like, wow, it's a, it's a beautiful vehicle. It had leather steering wheel. It's really nice. I was like, damn, this is really nice and so nice that you wonder again, this is where, where's the Toyota and Lexus Brand Nerds?
We talked about, we talked about a lot and all of our brand workshops is that brands have only so far that they can stretch back. Way back in the day, Toyota came out. With an incredibly beautiful sedan that they priced at the time, and this is way back in the day. They priced at a very high price point and they couldn't sell any of it.
It was a beautiful car, but it was a Toyota. A Toyota can only stretch so far. That's where they came up with the idea to actually come up with a new brand. Which was Lexus, which was phenomenally successful, and that went into the premium. So Lexus fought BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, that level of car because the br the, the Toyota brand could not stretch that far.
So where I'm going back to the Grand Wagoneer is it's a beautiful car. I don't know that it's a Jeep.
DC: Uh, okay. Um. This is a really good point about price elasticity. Yes. This is what you're talking about here.
LT: Yes. And brand elasticity. It's both.
DC: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, excuse me. Brand elasticity and price, but I should have said brand. Thank you for, uh, correcting me there, uh, Larry. Interesting, the Grand Wagoneer.
They're grand wagoneers that you can option out Larry and brand nerds. There are more than a hundred thousand dollars. I too have rented a Grand Wagoneer, and that sucker is nice.
LT: Really is.
DC: That, that, that, that sucker is nice. You buy a Grand Wagoneer in three years, that puppy's worth. Less than half of what you like for less, less than half, 36 months you sitting on a car that's worth, that's worth less than half.
So I get them attempting to bring the price down. I, to me, is while they are having fun with the social media asset of, uh, of this, uh, best car to have, uh, sex in. At the same time, they have LL COOL J talking about, don't call it a comeback with the Wagoneers. So yeah, they're on brand with the right person.
They're on brand with the right product. They are blaring it loud under the Jeep brand. Then all of a sudden you got over vehicle Grand Wagoneer to have sex in. So I believe it's misguided. Even if it's popular, even though it may blow up, it may already be blowing up on social media. I still think it's off strategy.
LT: Yeah, and that's a thing. Brand Nerds, one of the things that we talk about all the time, you might really get some great attention and you might, um, uh, really see some short term results.
What are the implications for the brand and DC and I we're all about brand and what the brand means both today and tomorrow. And while you might get some wonderful quick hits today, how does it, if it does, and again, we don't know this, this is our sup supposition, but how does it actually chip away and hurt the brand in a long-term way?
Um, and we're, we're not suggesting that this is gonna really, uh, like no kill the Jeep brand. We're not suggesting that at all. Um, but you, you need to be thinking about that as the brand custodian and the, and, and the leader of a brand when you're, when you're doing things like this.
DC: Great brother.
LT: I think, uh, I think we've hit this pretty well. D, what do you think?
DC: I think we've said what we've needed to say. I agree. Agree. Hey, let's just shout out. Uh, the brother's bad. He's a bad CMO as in as in good. Yes. Not bad as in bad, but bad as in good. He's really, really good and I applaud him for having fun on this.
I don't know.
LT: Yeah. Yeah. Well said. That's a, that's a good way to, to end this. So branders, thanks for listening. To the special What's Popping edition of Brands, Beats and Bytes The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" Cobbin, Larry Taman Hailey Cobbin, Jade Tate, and Tom Dioro.
DC: The podfatha!
LT: Yeah, and if you do like this podcast, please subscribe and share And for those on Apple podcast if you're so inclined.
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