Creative behind 'I bought a Jeep' sneers at 'It's a Mitsi'

A key creative behind Jeep’s successful ‘I bought a Jeep’ brand campaign has labelled Mitsubishi’s latest ‘It’s a Mitsi’ advertising push as "desperate".

Speaking at the Mumbrella360 conference on June 3, Cummins & Partners co-executive creative director Jim Ingram described the similar approach used by Mitsubishi as “flattering”, before adding that it wouldn’t “resonate the same way”.

Rather than enhance what Ingram described as “a very strong brand” in Mitsubishi, he felt that this approach instead “felt a little desperate”.

“It feels like they are chasing a certain market,” he added.

“One of our brand values is trying to create jealousy for our clients in their world. If you work in Fiat Chrysler marketing right now you’re top of the stack when it comes to their industry; there are a lot of brands looking at what they’re doing and wishing they had something similar.”

Ingram claimed that the Jeep campaign had brought in $2.5 billion in incremental Jeep sales over the last four years, helping transform the company from a little-known American four-wheel drive brand into a company with strong brand recognition associated with a spirit of adventure… and an expanding sales base.

VFACTS shows Jeep has sold 11,796 vehicles year to date to the end of May, up from 11,097 in 2014. These figures compare with a corresponding tally of just 2804 year-to-date sales in May 2011, before the ‘I bought a Jeep’ campaign was rolled out in September of that year.