This commercial aired during the last Super Bowl. It seems to borrow from the “Imported from Detroit” ads by Chrysler in highlighting the strength and endurance of hard-luck Rust Belt cities. Its focused us Buffalo and it’s an ad for a local television station, I believe.
Chrysler wasn’t the first company to seize on the blend of nostalgia and sympathy for Rust Belt cities in an attempt to move products. As we’ve reported, Levi’s famously used Braddock, Pennsylvania to sell jeans, and Pallidium boots used Detroit’s industrial ruins to sell boots.
As self-serving as these groups are–the television station maybe less so–America is a capitalist county and if moving products is what it takes to bring these cities into national focus, so be it, I say.
-AS