Thinking: How Jeep lost its groove. How Hummer Found it.

Jeep had that code thing down pat. Only in a Jeep. And they stayed true to it. Of course, there was no one who could match up with Jeep’s heritage. The unwritten but well enunciated rule to Jeep creatives was that if any other vehicle and especially a mere truck could be substituted for the Jeep in the TV concept, the TV spot didn’t get produced. Only in a Jeep meant exactly that.

And it worked. Hopefully you’re not so young or have so little sense of history that you won’t remember the Jeep spot titled “Snow.” It was the Grand Lion at Cannes a few years back. And was set in a world Narnia’s Ice Queen would envy. A Dune- like (there I go mixing movie metaphors) thing moving under the snow comes to a halt at a barely visible stop sign. We see a blinker. And The Thing turns left.

Not one single shot of The Product. Not one single word uttered aloud in praise of The Product. Just the title card: Only in a Jeep.

It was just about perfect. But Jeep executed a wrong turn somewhere down the road.

You see, all things considered, it was easy to be brilliant back then. Jeep had no real competition.

Then along came Hummer. Who could match up with Jeep’s heritage. And then some. But it wasn’t like Like Nothing Else trumped Only in a Jeep. More like Jeep backed out of the game altogether. They ceded the high ground – the high and faraway ground.

And so those savvy marketing execs At Daimler-Chrysler commissioned someone to dummy up a test intended only for dummies. Trail Rated my lily-white oil pan. Like who couldn’t see through that?

Dumber and Dumberer. Clearly Jeep marketers were on marketing smack. Because when Jeep got a hemi under the hood – like where else you find if not in a Dodge spot but that’s a whole ‘nother rant altogether – they followed up that nonsense by matching up zero-to-sixty with a BMW on yet another track. And ended the commercial by having the Jeep make an abrupt turn off the road to make a point that was telegraphed about a nanosecond into the spot.

The irony was that this turn off the road was to the left. Like the turn in the “Snow” spot. Only the one was the right turn. While this other was a turn for the worse.

To repeat myself: All things considered, it was easy to be brilliant back then. Jeep had no real competition. But … when they faced a legitimate competitor, the dim bulbs took over.

As for Hummer? Brillianter and Brillianterer.

The folks responsible for directing, creating and approving the Hummer spots got it. The groove. And if you need any proof that they’re in it, take a click look at Hummer’s “Chairs” spot at http://www.boardsmag.com/screeningroom/commercials/1783/ Hands down, far and away like nothing else.

I could go on and on. But as long as the Hummer creatives and the Hummer marketers go on and on, I won’t have to.

Rebuttal?