• by Tanya Gazdik , Yesterday

Stellantis’ Jeep brand is launching creative tied to Paramount Pictures’ “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.”

The 2025 Jeep Wrangler takes center stage in a 30-second spot featuring clips from the film, which debuts in theaters on May 23.

“It's going to sound cliched, but adventure and capability are absolutely at the core of our brand and at the core of the ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise in the same way that Dodge is synonymous with the ‘Fast and Furious’ franchise,” says Lucy McLellan, senior vice president, global chief marketing and communications officer at Jeep and head of marketing, North America.

The spot, directed by Vince Peone of ArtClass, was created in partnership with the Jeep brand, Paramount Pictures and creative agency Highdive. It will run across television, digital and social media channels, including high-profile sports, such as MLB, NBA, NBA Draft, WNBA and PGA. 

The movie stars Tom Cruise reprising his role as Ethan Hunt, who drives the Jeep Wrangler 4xe. Also featured in the film is the Jeep Gladiator,

In the spot, a couple is shopping for a 2025 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon X in a dealership showroom. As the salesperson takes them through the vehicle’s features, both are seen suddenly hovering on wires over the Jeep Wrangler, an homage to Cruise’s iconic wire scene from the first “Mission: Impossible” film, which is featured in the spot along with footage from the upcoming movie.

Paramount Pictures executives and Cruise himself were involved in the creative process, McLellan tells Marketing Daily.

"It goes to show how important the marketing of the movie is here and actually how strategic it is end-to-end," she says. 

Highdive is Jeep’s creative agency of record and the brief went only to them -- it wasn't a jump ball exercise with other agencies competing for the work, she says.

“So we went through a process with them and the normal creative process of iterating ideas,” McLellan says. “We got down to our short list. We decided on the concept, the top-down inspection concept together, and then worked hand-in-hand through preproduction, actual production, partnering on set, post-production. … Having this lovely blend between creative agency and the studio working together has actually been really fascinating to watch.”

Having the “wire” scene at the end and using the movie score were both suggested by Cruise, she says. 

“This is the first time that the original wire scene has been approved for commercial use, so that was the flavor that he brought to it, which just means so much to us,” McLellan says. 

This was the first time Jeep has filmed a commercial in a dealership in a “very long time,” she says. A 23-second version of the spot will be available for dealers to use as a retail spot.

This year at the National Automotive Dealers Association conference, Jeep executives “made a significant number of commitments to our dealers as a measure to reinforce trust and partnership going into the new year and new leadership,” she says.

“One of those commitments was to put more into tier two, so more into product-focused marketing for them and really trying to find that nice balance, I would say, between brand building with emotion and more of a retail focus on promotion,” McLellan says. “So still having that really great creative from an emotional perspective while still being able to really subtly introduce the products and the product features.”

The spot ends with the voiceover: “No mission is impossible with a Jeep Wrangler."

“At the end of the day, if you're going to invest in big partnerships and big media, it's best to have it working seamlessly, full-funnel, top to bottom,” McLellan says.