Campaign Trail is our analysis of some of the best new creative efforts from the marketing world. View past columns in the archives here.
The car reveal is a staple of automotive ads and presentations, wherein draped fabric is pulled back to show off a new model like a magician unveiling his latest trick. Jeep’s latest effort in support of the 2026 Grand Wagoneer takes that trope in a racy, unexpected and self-referential direction.
The long-form version of “The ‘Family’ SUV” video starts with the Grand Wagoneer under fabric, but with a sultry-voiced narrator and a porn-groove soundtrack. When the car is revealed, it is done by comedian Iliza Shlesinger, now wearing the fabric, who clarifies: The Wagoneer doesn’t just have room for the whole family, it has enough room to make a whole family.
Shlesinger’s insight isn’t just a joke: it was drawn from an actual 2023 post on Jalopnik that named the Grand Wagoneer the best car to have sex in. What follows in Jeep’s video is the comedian’s pitch to a fictional Jeep marketing team, including cutaways to an ad that she believes can best testify to the Jeep’s bona fides. The clip ends with Shlesinger nominating herself to be Jeep’s next CFO — and the “F” doesn’t stand for family.
The long-form “The Family SUV” video is running on the brand’s YouTube channel, with shorter-form content running across the brand’s social channels, including Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok. The campaign was created with Chicago-based agency Highdive, which hoped to craft a video that would earn media and build buzz beyond automotive trades and car enthusiasts, while still positioning the Grand Wagoneer as a family vehicle.
“How do you do this in a way that doesn't just put a bunch of kids in the backseat with car seats and all that stuff?” wondered Chad Broude, co-founder co-chief creative officer at Highdive.
The Highdive team found the answer in that Jalopnik article and hit the ground running. The agency shared a handful of ideas with the Jeep team, which quickly zeroed in on the final angle. Some in the ad industry might be asking Highdive how they got such a racy concept through.
“There wasn't a lot of discussion. They loved it immediately and didn't want to talk about the other ideas — they greenlit this concept the fastest,” Broude explained. “We just have a great relationship — it's very trusting — and obviously we knew we had to walk the tightrope, because this could get gross or crass if handled the wrong way.”
Cavalcade of comedy
To walk that tightrope, Highdive proposed Shlesinger, a one-time winner of “Last Comic Standing” and occasional brand spokesperson. While not the best-known comic on the landscape, she provided a measure of “if you know, you know” credibility to the effort — and the right tonal balance.
“Her stand-up set usually teeters back and forth between telling jokes of what it's like to raise a family, but she also goes and tells jokes about her sex life,” Broude said. “The client thought she was a great fit, too, because although she goes to an edgy area, she doesn't cross the line where some other comedians might go.”
Highdive landed on the video-about-an-ad format as a way to provide ballast for Shlesinger’s bawdy ideas. The fictional Jeep marketing team allows the brand to be a voice of reason and speak to the Jeep’s family-focused features in a compelling way.
“The reason we like the meta structure is someone in this story had to think this was a bad idea,” Broude said. “It allowed us to incorporate a lot of car features… we got to talk about how it's great for families, how it's got a cooler in the center console, how it's got all these safety features.”
The narrative also keeps the creative engaging for its full three-minute runtime; the campaign has received positive feedback from consumers and professionals who have watched it through several times. While the brand is also putting shorter cutdowns on social platforms, the longer version makes the best case for the Grand Wagoneer.
“If you're gonna go with longer form content, you have got to make it worth it. You have to hook people and keep them hooked the entire time. I think we've all seen those gratuitous three- or four-minute ads, and we can't get through them,” Broude said.
To have enough options for a compelling long-form version, Broude suggests having a lot of options in the script and during the shoot — even if not everything shot will be appropriate for mass consumption. The final version of “The Family SUV” was crafted through conversations between agency and brand, as jokes were cut, replaced and put back in.
“What you can't do is be too censored going into the shoot, because you don't know what's going to really work in the edit,” Broude advised. “We shot so many alts and so many bits knowing they weren't all going to make it, but let's not outsmart ourselves: Let the edit tell us what's the best choice.”
