Posted on 02/04/2013 1:11:11 PM PST by drewh
An iconic radio voice took the cake, as Dodge Ram’s “So God Made a Farmer” spot with Paul Harvey as the voice over was the highest-rated commercial during Super Bowl XLVII according to ADBOWL, the original advertising ranking website for consumers developed in 2002 by McKee Wallwork & Company.
It wasn’t flashy or filled with special effects, but Dodge Ram’s Super Bowl spot featuring the late radio broadcaster Paul Harvey’s tribute to U.S. farmers won the hearts and minds of viewers Sunday night.
The two-minute spot featured a series of stark photos of farmers at work. Along with a montage of still images, Harvey’s distinctive voice delivers the narration: his “So God Made a Farmer” speech, which he gave in 1978 at the National Future Farmers of America Convention. He died in 2009 at age 90.
The Ram Truck brand commissioned 10 noted photographers including National Geographic icon William Albert Allard and renowned documentary photographer Kurt Markus to document American farm life, yielding a beautiful and comprehensive catalog of farming images. Many of these artful and compelling still images provide the visual mosaic for “Farmer;” Harvey’s passionate oration provides the narration.
In this latest extension of the brand’s Guts, Glory, Ram campaign, the video uses slices of farming life to remind us of our shared identity and character, the greatness born out of perseverance and determination and the rewards that come from hard work.
“Farmer” was created in partnership with The Richards Group/Dallas. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMpZ0TGjbWE&feature=player_embedded
The spot immediately set Twitter ablaze, with viewers registering their overwhelmingly positive reaction to the commercial.
The Ram brand has declared 2013 the year of the farmer, and is kicking off a year of programs dedicating to highlighting the importance of farmers.
As of 11:00 MT, the top 5 ads as ranked by ADBOWL voters on a five point scale were:
1 Ram Truck: Farmer 4.2121
2 Tide: Miracle Stain 4.1356
3 Budweiser: The Clydesdales – Brotherhood 3.9735
4 Coca-Cola: Security Camera 3.6047
5 Kia: Space Babies 3.5926
ADBOWL Winners 2002-2012:
2012 – Volkswagen’s “Dog Strikes Back”
2011 – Volkswagen’s “Imperial March”
2010 – Snickers’ “You’re Not You”
2009 – Bridgestone’s “Taters”
2008 – Budweiser’s “Clydesdale Team”
2007 – Bud Light’s “Rock, Paper, Scissors”
2006 – Bud Light’s “Hidden Fridge”
2005 – Anheuser-Busch’s “Applause”
2004 – Budweiser’s “Donkey Dream”
2003 – FedEx’s “Castaway”
2002 – M&M’s “Chocolate on Your Pillow”
May we deduce that you really don’t have all that much experience in farming?
The ads are OK but the beer needs more hops.
I was so waiting for Joe Montana to show up at the end of the Tide commercial!
Will always favor the Bud/clydesdale commercials, they are classic.
Actually, there’s a large group to whom the ad applies.
The group that sucks down the farm subsidies fit your description, and are numerically a small group. Over 60% of those who file a Schedule F pull down no subsidies at all, according to the USDA. We were one who didn’t. The USDA proffered all manner of literature to get us to sign up for this, that and some other BS. Older farmers who were wise to their antics told me: “Once you take the first dollar, there’s a gossamer thread attached to it... and one day, you’ll find out that it’s grown to a steel rope.”
Once you get outside the “big six” crops, subsidies are few and far between. Rice, corn and beans are the biggest crops for the trough-feeders. Many smaller outfits might have CRP payments, but that program was built to suit the “needs” of duck hunters, not farmers.
The biggest tit-suckers on ag subsidies are the top 10% in revenue (not necessarily production). They pull down about 50% of ag subsidies. By the time you’ve gotten down to the top 20% of all revenue makers in a county, you’re looking at over 70% of subsidy payments in a county. Some of the worst are co-ops and farm services companies that don’t actually do any farming. And then, of course, there are the trough-feeders who own farmland, but don’t actually do any farming who get the checks in the mail. USDA subsidy checks go to some very unusual addresses, including NYC, Las Vegas and others where there is obviously no farming done.
As for who has pulled down the largest aggregate amounts of ag subsidies in the US? Corporate rice co-ops in Arkansas. Since 1995, the top tit-sucker has been the “Riceland Foods” co-op, and they’ve pulled down over a half-billion dollars in trough money.
Next biggest tit-sucker from 1995 to now? Producers Rice Mill, also out of Stuttgart, AR, with over $300 mil in grift. Third biggest? Another rice co-op, only out of Sacramento, CA
Oh, and I should add: Once you get outside a select group of states - about eight, overall, the rate of subsidy non-participation goes up dramatically.
Example: here in Wyoming, the USDA says that over 70% of farms/ranches don’t collect subsidies. Where we used to farm, Nevada, over 85% of farmers didn’t collect anything.
The top 10 states pull down about 60% of subsidy payments. The worst offender is Texas, followed by Iowa, then Illinois. Right there, the top three states, you’re up to 25% of ag subsidies. The top 25 states pull in about 90% of subsidies.
The ag subsidy system is designed to buy votes in states that historically wobble between sending Republicans or Democrats to Congress. That’s’ it. States like Wyoming, which has been pretty solidly Republican for a long time, don’t get jack compared to the wobble-states. Iowa is the worst of the wobble states, and every four years, it’s an outright bidding war for votes with subsidy money in that state.
Leftie/Libs were already whining this morning about the Farmer ad and similar ads.
It wasn’t really an ad ...
It was actually from an old ad ...
It has the voice of Paul Harvey!
==
Considering that most of the other ‘ads’ were pure crap, it was refreshing to see this remake.
Here’s the text of his speech, made newly famous during the Super Bowl:
And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer.
God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.” So God made a farmer.
“I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon — and mean it.” So God made a farmer.
God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year.’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain’n from ‘tractor back,’ put in another seventy-two hours.” So God made a farmer.
God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. So God made a farmer.
God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church.
“Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life ‘doing what dad does.’” So God made a farmer.
I will offer this observation. Paul Harvey’s Saturday shows were all sermon’s...nothing to do with news...but a standard 8 to 10 minute sermon. All total? There’s at least 2k of them. So this Farmer sermon? It’s just one of 2,000 sermons sitting there.
They merely picked one of two thousand.
Personally, I’d advocate that they put all 2,000 of the Saturday editions out to download or in CD form. I’d pay just about whatever they wanted. I think the inspiration from them....would be worth an awful lot.
I was quite amazed to see this..I bet it took the libs by surprise to.
Where does the sugar industry and dairy compacts fit into all of that?
Where does the sugar industry and dairy compacts fit into all of that?
Where can I find those facts, and how can I compare based on revenue and production? (After all should a farm that produces 1X be equated to one that makes 1000X?) I also notice that nobody complained about my statement concerning farmers and illegal aliens.
“It was a terrible commercial....It’s a pretty good monolog but it doesn’t work as a commercial.”
Terrible commercial?
Here it is a day later and we’re still talking about Dodge Ram. Their 2 minutes of air-time have stretched to about 22 hours and will be talked about for weeks to come.
Absolute excellence in marketing!
Bingo!
That's what most people loved about that spot...something about God,country,farmers with calloused hands, hard work and narrated by the great Paul Harvey... Now. you've heard the rest of the story...(I miss that man!)
Here’s a site that has your figures in a ‘nutshell’.
http://www.agclassroom.org/gan/timeline/farmers_land.htm
Their information sources from the USDA site where you have to sift through a few things to get the same synopsis the first site provides:
http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/index.php
And we do not have any illegal aliens. We do have four Polish hands working here and they’re worth any ten Mexicans. Plus they’re Catholic, they go to church on Wednesday night and Sunday morning, they don’t drink, don’t steal, and they love America.
Don't even get me started on "first responders." Some of them may be great, but the ones in a public union are bankrupting our cities.
I think Ford is laying low right now. After their "Random Acts Of Fusion" campaign over the summer, do you see many 2013 Fusions on the road?
No, because they botched the product launch. They had to shut down their manufacturing plant in Hermosillo, Mexico, in September while they shipped the dies for the body molds back to Michigan for retooling and return. Furthermore, they had 20,000 cars produced before discovering the flawed molds. These cars had to be disassembled, repaired, and reassembled. Half those cars were shipped from Mexico to Michigan for repair and return, too.
And they had to replace early headlights, too, for overheating.
Cars ordered in August and September are just being delivered now.
-PJ
I saw the ad and honestly thought that Chevy had hit it out of the park...
Imagine my surprise - a dodge, eh?
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