• Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, December 8, 2009 10:41 AM

Like the current National Geographic and the "I Am. Jeep." spots, a new Chrysler ad that calls for Myanmar dissident Aung San Suu Kyi's release from house arrest "perpetuates a trend in advertising of what might be called nonsense affirmation, a la Eckhart Tolle," writes Dan Neil. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Forget some copy-editing problems with the script and the fact that most American car buyers don't know Myanmar from a moon circling Jupiter. And so what if the cause has little to do with a couple of tons of metal propelled by an engine? "As a brand, there is nothing worthwhile left of Chrysler," Neil writes. "It has retreated to marketing's primordial ooze. Why not begin to remake it in the image of what it will become -- globalized, sophisticated, European -- instead of what it was?"

Neil also points out that a piece in Ad Age that claimed that Chrysler used federal bailout money to hire an Italian ad agency to create the ad was wrong, according to Chrysler Group president-CEO Olivier Francois. It repackaged an earlier ad made for the Italian Lancia brand which, Neil says, is simply good business.

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