Land Rover For Breakfast

Sport utility vehicles are the breakfast cereal of cars. Or at least they're usually sold that way. Like corn flakes, they don't make the meal; they're simply part of a balanced breakfast. A four-by-four can't hydroplane — but it'll haul your jet skis. Jeeps don't pop open like transformers and become cabins in the woods — but they can drive off road to get to the elusive cabin. That's the utility part.

The new Land Rover ad campaign, however, insists that you don't need O.J. and toast alongside your SUV. Like ads for Mercedes and BMW have long claimed, the newest commercial for the Land Rover doesn't insist that the vehicle provides transportation to your destination, but rather, that the SUV is the destination.

Cue the motivational drum beats...

The ad opens with a man in deep concentration. Rhythmically, he's melding wide swaths of paint together on a muddied canvas. As the drum grumbles in the background, he exhales. The point of view shifts: we're watching the man paint from above. A couch potato becomes Jackson Pollack.

Suddenly, we're in a snow-clad forest, cutting through rough terrain on skis. The camera pans out and we're watching the skier. Again, drum beats. The man exhales white vapor into the air.

Then we're on a horse. Pull back: a jockey is pounding through the mud. Drum beats, exhales.

Finally, we realize, the ad is not for asthma medicine. There's another point of view/observation switch, but this time, we are/are watching a man in a Land Rover. He revs the engine, drum beat.

He exhales.

This is the Land Rover "The New Rush" campaign. Sugar and artificial flavoring pumped straight into your veins is the whole damn meal. The Land Rover doesn't haul your paint brushes or your skis or your horse trailer — it replaces them.

The ad works insidiously. It catches the idle channel surfer unaware. The first question is "Gee, what is this guy painting?" Then, before the question is answered, "Whoah, weird cut...is that the same guy skiing?" Then suddenly the viewer is on a horse, and just as he's asking himself if this is some sort of really eccentric triathlon he's involved in, boom, he's in a Land Rover and it's all connected. Or, that's what the folks at Land Rover are hoping.

The athletic pulse of the drum beat is broken only by a frame or two of slow motion, the moment of exhalation...it's as if we're bottling the moment of exhilaration, the moment that the soul is at its most palpable — only to pour it down the gas tank and use it as petrol.

It calms and consoles the middle aged man who finds himself stuck on a set track towards retirement. He doesn't have to worry about the road ahead or take time off from his eighty-hour work week to fulfill his primal needs. Land Rover has synthesized creation, exploration and athletic competition. All of this and more can be achieved from the comfort of a heated seat on the drive to work.

Being able to buy a Land Rover — the simple quality of ownership — puts you on the same plane as the folks who are actually pushing their minds and their bodies to the limit. Want to live life to the fullest? Buy a Land Rover.

This ad is meant to appeal to the people who fear they've followed their pockets rather than their passions. Finally, it's clear: you don't have to paint the Mona Lisa or write the great American novel. You don't have to win the Heisman Trophy or the Triple Crown. You just need to fill up your new Land Rover and breathe in that new car smell. Ah, fulfillment.

And then you exhale.

— Colin Alexander (colin_alexander at hotmail dot com)