The Jeep® brand teamed up with NBC’s hit summer music competition series “Songland” last night (8/21) to give one songwriter the chance to write a song specifically for a new Jeep television commercial. The winning song “Young,” originally penned by songwriter Katelyn Tarver, will be recorded, released and performed by Nashville hitmakers Old Dominion. The 90-second Jeep brand commercial, featuring “Young” performed by Old Dominion, premiered during last night’s (Aug. 21) episode and can now be viewed across the Jeep digital and social channels, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The song “Young” is now available across streaming platforms.
“The opportunity to work with NBC and ‘Songland’ showed us that we can rewrite the rules of traditional product placement in such a way that we achieve an unprecedented level of authenticity and consumer engagement,” said Olivier Francois, Chief Marketing Officer, FCA. “The ‘Songland’ episode acted as a one-hour conversation where the Jeep brand’s ethos is dissected and explored in front of a massive television audience.
“Additionally, working with Old Dominion, Shane McAnally and songwriter Katelyn Tarver to record a song that speaks as a love letter to Jeep brand’s attributes of freedom, adventure and Americana, and share it with viewers, gave us an incredible extension to the initiative,” said Francois.
“We loved partnering with Jeep on a marketing and music first that allowed the brand to be the principal element of the storytelling for ‘Songland,'” said Mark Marshall, President of Advertising Sales and Partnerships, NBCUniversal.
“Old Dominion are some of the most talented writers in music right now, so to have them like my song enough to choose to record and release it is a huge honor,” said winning songwriter Katelyn Tarver from Glennville, Georgia. “Then, to have it not only featured in a Jeep commercial, but for me to get to be in that commercial too, is just beyond. This whole experience has been a blast and I’m so excited for people to hear ‘Young’ and hopefully love it as much as we do.”
“Songland” producer-mentors include Ryan Tedder (lead singer of OneRepublic and Grammy Award-winning producer of Adele and Taylor Swift), Ester Dean (Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer of Rihanna and Katy Perry) and Shane McAnally (Grammy-winning songwriter and producer of Kacey Musgraves and Sam Hunt with 40 #1 country records).
Ryan Tedder and his band OneRepublic launched the Jeep 2018 summer campaign with its hit song “Connection.” Following that campaign, OneRepublic was also featured and performed in the two-minute “More Than Just Words” video as part of the Jeep brand’s Big Game Blitz leading up to Super Bowl 2019, which shattered online view records for FCA, climbing to over 110 million views. The video, a visual narration of the “The Star Spangled Banner,” served as a catalyst that took viewers on an unexpected musical and visual odyssey, with images splashing across the screen representing the song’s lyrics. The “More Than Just Words” video also achieved an overwhelming level of positive online social sentiment for the Jeep brand, with all comments 99 percent positive or neutral.
The Jeep brand most recently worked with actor, singer-songwriter and musician Jeremy Renner to launch its 2019 “Summer of Jeep” campaign.
Jeep brand has also worked with music artists and songwriters, including OneRepublic, X Ambassadors and Halsey, to break new music through Jeep brand campaigns.