Kalamazoo-raised baseball star Derek Jeter and his wife, Hannah, have signed a multi-year ad campaign to promote the Grand Wagoneer full-size SUV from the Jeep team.
Details of the partnership stretching from television to social media to future print extensions weren’t disclosed. A 60-second spot launched the “Eyes Wide Open” campaign Friday night during the first game of the World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Houston Astros. The 2023 Grand Wagoneer starts at $88,640 and maxes out around $120,000
After launching last year, production of the Wagoneer and the more premium Grand Wagoneer has ramped up at Warren Truck Assembly Plant — albeit with challenges amid a global semiconductor shortage, said Jim Morrison, head of Jeep in North America. Now, with the vehicle at No. 2 in its segment, Morrison said, it’s pursuing the crown.
After weeks of discussions, Derek and Hannah, a former tennis player who is now a model and television host, were the picks to help since their family story embodies the “American Dream,” said Olivier François, Stellantis’ global chief marketing officer.
“We needed a personality that symbolizes American success,” he said. “We wanted someone relatable to our customer, and that’s always key. Someone that they would know, someone relevant to them, possibly someone with a family, wife, kids, the kind of person who authentically could embody our three-row SUV. And last, but not least, is Jeep, so is authentic.”
The New York Yankees recruited Jeter, the son of two U.S. Army veterans, out of high school and he played shortstop from 1995 to 2014, serving as team captain during his last 12 seasons. He is a Baseball Hall of Fame member and a five-time World Series champion. ESPN this summer aired a documentary miniseries on him called “The Captain.”
The campaign, created in partnership with ad agency Highdive LLC in Chicago, features shots of the couple individually and together in New York City and with the Grand Wagoneer Obsidian. “Eyes Wide Open” is a reference to Jeter turning his dream of becoming a professional ballplayer into a reality.
“Family means everything to both Hannah and me,” he said in a statement. “Valuing the time we spend together and working to achieve the goals we set together are critically important, and those are priorities that have been imprinted on me from the example my parents set. I was raised in a city not far from where the Grand Wagoneer is built in Michigan, and this partnership means a lot to me to tap into that rich history and share it with our children.”
Jeter and his wife have been married for six years and have three young daughters. The children who appear in the ad are actors.
“Between school drop-offs and daily life, we spend a lot of time together as a family on the road,” Hannah Jeter said in a statement. “We wanted a vehicle that was authentic to our needs. The Grand Wagoneer will give us all of that, and so much more.”
Jeep sold 9,454 Grand Wagoneers in the first nine months of 2022, up 45% since early this year, Morrison said. Most of those sales are conquests from other brands, he noted. Because of the semiconductor shortage, however, Stellantis has eliminated the third shift at the Warren plant producing the Wagoneers and Ram Classic pickup truck, though the company hopes to reinstate the shift following the production ramp-up of the longer wheelbase Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer L.
“Hopefully,” Morrison said, “when the chips stabilize, and we can get some more volume going that we’d like to have, that it will be able to keep our customers happy.”
bnoble@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @BreanaCNoble