Jeep Electric Slides Into Big Game, While Ram Opts for Innuendo

When bears, elephants, giraffes, snakes and all manner of wildlife on land and sea start dancing to the familiar thump of “Electric Boogie,” you can bet your last dollar it’s a Super Bowl ad. Jeep travels this route in an appropriately energized :60 from agency Highdive, with the nameplate’s 4Xe hybrids in the spotlight.

As if enough fur wasn’t flying on screen, Shaggy—the Grammy-winning producer and recording artist—remixes the classic tune with Marcia Griffiths. Her 1983 version has long been a staple of weddings and graduations, igniting countless displays of the Electric Slide. (Up-and-coming vocalists Amber Lee, Jamila Falak and Moyann also appear on the reimagined track.)

“Authenticity is one of the Jeep brand’s core pillars, so it was extremely important to us to release this modernized version of ‘Electric Boogie’ with singer Marcia Griffiths, whose first recording of the song nearly 40 years ago made a huge impact on popular culture,” says Olivier Francois, global CMO at Jeep parent Stellantis. 

He adds: “We’d like to think of the commercial as a natural extension of our acclaimed ‘Earth Odyssey’ spot with our Jeep 4xe vehicles and the animal kingdom getting in rhythm with nature.”

The spot slots into the trend of Big Game ads tapping into music nostalgia. Shaggy discussed the project with AdAge, noting, “I wanted it to have a modern dance feel and then we had to check the tempo. It really magically worked for us.” 

Separately, Highdive drove a markedly different SB path for Ram Trucks, creating a minute-long promo called “Premature Electrification.” Whatever could they mean by that?

Touting the electric Ram 1500 REV pickup, the commercial broadly sends up pharma campaigns. It trades in saucy innuendo, playing off fears folks have about lacking “enough power” and feeling “unsatisfied”—either between the sheets or behind the wheel of an EV.