Clint Eastwood Super Bowl Commercial: Why Chrysler's Ad Won Super Sunday

Super Bowl commercials tend to stick to a certain formula. The idea is to cram as much craziness and general nonsense into a 30-second or one-minute window as possible, with the ultimate result being a hilarious commercial that will be remembered by all.

Some companies try to stand out by mixing in a hot babe or two. Judging from what we learned on Twitter on Super Sunday, this is a pretty good idea.

Chrysler decided to go a different direction. If you missed it, here's Chrysler's Super Bowl ad:

This commercial, my friends, is the winner of this year's crop of Super Bowl commercials. There is no real competition, nor is there a set of rules to determine a winner, but this is your winner. Hands down.

You don't need to take my word for it. The ad was a huge hit on Twitter, and the buzz took quite some time to die down. Other commercials came and went, but people were still talking about Clint Eastwood and the Chrysler ad.

It's not difficult to determine why the ad struck such a chord. In addition to it being a very well executed commercial, it had a few other things going for it as well.

More than anything, Chrysler's Eastwood ad benefited from perfect timing. It came on the heels of Madonna's epic farce of a halftime show. Most people were trying to come to grips with the hideous spectacle they had just seen, so getting to see an ultra-serious commercial with a very clear message was a welcome change of pace.

Some were delighted just to hear Eastwood's voice, as it is, after all, the voice of an ultimate badass. Others delighted in the sudden sense of patriotism, something that is not as big a deal on Super Sunday as it perhaps should be.

And indeed, it doesn't get much more 'Merican than this. Clint Eastwood is easily the biggest American legend Hollywood has to offer, and at this point his very voice is iconic. Add in pastoral shots of American cityscapes, inside glances at blue-and white-collar America and assembly line footage, and you have a fitting highlight reel to present to extraterrestrials to give them an education on what they can expect to find in the good, old U.S. of A.

Exactly what kind of message the commercial was trying to send to the people of America is a matter of opinion. Whether you lean to the left or the right, though, there's no arguing that this is essentially a pro-American ad. It is meant to be a rallying cry no matter which way you look at it, and that's by no means a bad thing.

Most Super Bowl commercials could care less about rallying their audience to any kind of cause. The only cause they're meant to further is that of buying the product being sold, and that's it. Anything more complicated than that is not their business.

In Chrysler's ad, the company's own cars are an afterthought. Once you realize that, you realize that the company spent millions of its own dollars just to send a positive message, and then it merely signed 'from Chrysler' at the end.

You can't hate on that. On the contrary, you have to love it. Instead of saying "me, me, me," Chrysler's ad effectively said "us, us, us."

On a day that is meant as a grand celebration of all things American, Chrysler and Clint Eastwood celebrated America.