Call it a home­town kick in the pants, but if you saw the Chrysler ad with Eminem dur­ing the Super Bowl on Sun­day you totally get the ref­er­ence in the sub­ject title of this blog­post. I grew up in a sub­urb of Detroit. Depend­ing on who was ask­ing, I would either tell peo­ple that I grew up in Detroit (mean­ing, the region) or I would say “a sub­urb of Detroit.” I had close fam­ily mem­bers and friends who lived in the City proper. My uncle owned a flower shop in Detroit for over 50 years. I’ve never been embar­rassed for where I’ve been from, but there are times I’ve been ashamed to admit it. Not any­more. This City has been beaten up, scourged, rocked to its core, shat­tered, torn apart, and left for dead. And yet, it’s still stand­ing. It’s still sur­viv­ing. By many accounts, it is on its way back. This is the way we do it. This is how we like it. We’re the under­dog. We’re not a New York City, we’re not Chicago, we’re not Dal­las, Los Ange­les, or Atlanta.… we ARE Detroit. There are many great things hap­pen­ing in this city that is giv­ing us all hope. There are plenty of things to still make it bet­ter. But no longer do I scour or bow my head when some­one asks where I’m from, I can say with my head held high, “I am DETROIT.”

Because I’m an “adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing guy,” I get asked, “So what was your favorite Super Bowl com­mer­cial?” around this time of year. Unequiv­o­cally, the com­mer­cial that spoke most to me and inspired me was the Chrysler 200 com­mer­cial that fea­tured Eminem and had the tagline “Imported from Detroit.” This is what adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing is all about. It’s about mov­ing peo­ple. It’s about inspir­ing them to take own­er­ship. To be proud. To say “Yes, this is what I am.” Yes, the true tes­ta­ment to the effec­tive­ness of this ad will be in the deter­mi­na­tion of how many Chrysler 200 units it helps sell. I get that. But with this ad, it has inspired our region once again. Not only has it inspired this region, it has also made oth­ers who have moved away from Detroit to proudly say “I am IMPORTED FROM DETROIT.”

So from a mar­ket­ing per­spec­tive, how are you mov­ing your audi­ence? What story are you telling? Are you sell­ing a product/service or are you inspir­ing peo­ple? When you inspire, noth­ing else much mat­ters.… yet, much more comes as a result.