Exploitation? Or Good Advertisement?

In a 2018 Super Bowl commercial the company Dodge uses a Martin Luther King Jr. sermon as a voice over to their Ram ad which causes backlash and criticism on social media.

The voice over they used was from a speech King gave on February 4, 1968. The sermon was called “The Drum Major Instinct” and it was given at Ebenezer Baptist Church. King gave the sermon two months before he was assassinated. According to the Stanford University MLK Jr. Research and Education Institute, King’s sermon was an adaptation of the 1952 homily ‘‘Drum-Major Instincts’’ by J. Wallace Hamilton, a well-known, liberal, white Methodist preacher.

In the ad, the company Dodge tries to portray the idea that Ram trucks are built to serve. In the commercial there are clips of people who you may find hardworking or heroic, and there are some scenes where these people are serving others. For example, there was a search team, firefighter, teacher, soldiers, and others.

The commercial ends with the phrase “Built to Serve” and a Ram logo.

This is the text from Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermon that was used as a voice over in the Ram commercial:

“If you want to be important — wonderful. If you want to be recognized —wonderful. If you want to be great — wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s a new definition of greatness. And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.”

The Martin Luther King Jr. estate approved the use of King’s words in the Dodge ad. A representative from Dodge emailed Slate saying they “worked closely with the representatives of the Martin Luther King Jr. estate to receive the necessary approvals”. Although the estate approved the use of King’s words, the King Center did not. The King Center is a non-profit organization founded by Coretta King Scott. It’s a living memorial and exhibit to educate others on King and his belief of non-violence. The King Center distanced themselves from the ad. They wrote on Twitter:

“Neither ﷟HYPERLINK "https://twitter.com/TheKingCenter" nor ﷟HYPERLINK "https://twitter.com/BerniceKing" is the entity that approves the use of ﷟HYPERLINK "https://twitter.com/hashtag/MLK?src=hash"’s words or imagery for use in merchandise, entertainment (movies, music, artwork, etc) or advertisement, including tonight’s ﷟HYPERLINK "https://twitter.com/Dodge" ﷟HYPERLINK "https://twitter.com/hashtag/SuperBowl?src=hash" commercial.”

King’s youngest daughter, Bernice King, also distanced herself from the ad. When asked if her father’s voice was allowed to be used for the commercial she responded no.

Along with comments from King’s family there was a lot of criticism from people on Twitter. Many people responded to Dodge angry and upset to why they would use MLK Jr. words to sell trucks. There were also some people who didn’t find the ad offensive or disrespectful.

One user wrote:

“Who the heck green lighted that tasteless commercial? Fire them before the end of the game and issue an apology.”

But another user also wrote:

“I see the ad as their trying to show respect to black ppl, military and sell their product. Maybe it wasn’t perfect to you but I’m not offended that they tried.”

After seeing the ad, I decided to read the sermon Martin Luther King Jr. gave. After reading it, I was surprised by the message he gave and how the meaning of the sermon was different than what the ad reflected.

According to King, the “drum major instinct” is the desire “to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade.” The drum major instinct causes people to “live life above their means” King says. It causes people to feed their ego by boasting and trying to become better than their neighbors. Our desire to attain attention drives us to spend more money than we have. Advertisers are drum majors. They lead us to go buy and consume the products we want. Sometimes the only time we are buying these products is because we are trying to outdo others. King even warned people not to fall for the advertisement of cars, clothes, etc. In a part of the sermon he actually said:

“Now the presence of this instinct explains why we are so often taken by advertisers. You know, those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion. And they have a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying. In order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whiskey. In order to make your neighbors envious, you must drive this type of car. In order to be lovely to love you must wear this kind of lipstick or this kind of perfume. And you know, before you know it, you’re just buying that stuff. That’s the way the advertisers do it…

It often causes us to live above our means. It’s nothing but the drum major instinct. Do you ever see people buy cars that they can’t even begin to buy in terms of their income? You’ve seen people riding around in Cadillacs and Chryslers who don’t earn enough to have a good T-Model Ford. But it feeds a repressed ego.”

King warns that the drum major instinct can become destructive. It leads people to boast, lie, become exclusive, seek attention, and push others down so they can be pushed up.

In the sermon, King connects his idea to the bible. He uses the story of James and John. Both ask to be seated by Jesus on the throne. This angers the other apostles because they also want that same privilege. All of the apostles had selfish ambitions, they asked “Who would be the greatest?” Jesus uses the event to teach the apostles that whoever wants to be great in heaven, must serve and put others before themselves on earth.

King says you can be a good drum major by “…if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice; say that I was a drum major for peace; I was a drum major for righteousness.”

I think that Dodge using King’s words for their commercial was misleading, unfair, and dishonest. It was misleading because how they used his words was out of context of his sermon and the idea he was trying to share. Although they made it seem like MLK was endorsing their product, in my opinion the true message was he would not. I don’t believe what Dodge did was horrible or malicious, but I do believe that there may have been a better way to advertise their trucks without using a historical figure to promote their product.

Link to Official Ram Trucks Super Bowl Commercial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlbY1tGARUA