Lincoln Uses Matthew McConaughey for New Ads

2015 Lincoln MKC and Matthew McConaughey (Credit: Lincoln Motor Company)

Lincoln Motor Company right now is a dead man walking, but the brand’s marketing team is trying to get a pulse going once more. One method being employed is hiring famous Hollywood actor Matthew McConaughey to act as an official spokesman. It’s not an entirely bad move, because after all Buick did the same thing with Peyton Manning.
A few commercials with McConaughey have already hit the airwaves and the Internet. They’re part of the brand’s new “Live in Your Moment” campaign that hopefully will convince people to look at Lincoln differently.

In one of the commercials, the Academy Award winner talks about how he started driving Lincolns long ago, not so that people would think of him a certain way, but just because he liked driving one. In another commercial the actor drives down a nighttime freeway as he talks about going back to the past to move forward, which is obviously an attempt at tapping into Lincoln’s rich heritage and arguably the brand’s greatest asset at the moment. The third commercial portrays McConaughey inside the Lincoln MKC, staring down a bull on a highway as he talks about respecting the animal and its ability to do whatever it wants.

How you feel about the new commercials likely lines up with how you feel about McConaughey himself. You can choose to see him as the guy who starred in a deluge of romantic comedies, or you can remember him as bald and crazy in Reign of Fire. Oh, and let’s not forget that he was also the Lincoln Lawyer, which might mean he’s the perfect guy for promoting the brand.

Will McConaughey’s cool factor reinvigorate Lincoln? It might get car shoppers to notice the MKC and that might start something, but Lincoln will need to come up with some more compelling vehicles and not just slick advertising if it wants to play with the big boys again.