NEW YORK (AP) — A Ram truck ad that used a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., is drawing a backlash.
The ad shows people doing service-oriented tasks set against audio of King’s speech, which urges people to be “great” by serving the greater good rather than being successful. It was supposed to highlight the volunteer program Ram Nation.
But it was criticized by viewers and ad experts alike for forging too tenuous a connection with the civil rights hero.
On Twitter, most people expressed the idea that using King’s speech to “sell trucks” crossed a line between a heartfelt message and exploiting emotions just to push a vehicle.
“They pushed it over the edge,” said Kelly O’Keefe, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Brandcenter. “You wanted to root for it because the cause is good, but it just didn’t end up fitting the brand, so you ended up feeling a little bit manipulated.”
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