For those unfamiliar with the story, a Jeep Liberty commercial appeared on the airwaves in which a man drives his Jeep across the ice to a stranded seal pup, raises a spear into the air and brings it crashing down, not onto the seal but through the ice, thereby "liberating" the seal pup so that it can return to its mother. An orchestrated letter-writing campaign opposing a stereotypical portrayal of sealers caused DaimlerChrysler to capitulate, and the advertisement has been cancelled. Good stuff, right?

Well, yes, but the ad follows closely DaimlerChrysler’s ill-fated deer hunter commercial, in which the drivers of Jeep Grand Cherokees "liberate" deer from hunters. Same type of letter-writing campaign, same capitulation by DaimlerChrysler.

Come to think of it, same excuses, same words, a la "our tongue in cheek portrayal was not intended to be offensive". To quote from DaimlerChrysler’s letter of "apology" sent out to those who complained about the seal hunter ad, "the negative emotion among some viewers relative to this story line was not anticipated".

Well, except in the absence of a collective lobotomy by DaimlerChrysler’s advertising executives, how could they anticipate anything else but negative emotion, when a slur against deer hunters was followed by a slur against sealers?

So DaimlerChrysler insults hunters, the outdoors community cries foul, they offer an "apology" and we shout "Hurray!", and congratulate ourselves. And then the same company uses the same story line to insult sealers, and the outdoors community cries foul, they offer an "apology" and we shout "Hurray!", and congratulate ourselves. So what’s next for Jeep – "liberating" trout? And what’s next for us – complaints and victory, after the damage has been done? The cliches abound – "You can’t unscramble scrambled eggs", "It’s too late to close the barn door after the horse has fled", "Everyone makes mistakes; that’s what erasers are for", etc.

DaimlerChrysler’s portrayal that their SUV’s are environmentally friendly, while hunters and sealers are not, is of course patently ridiculous. But if they truly wanted to display any measure of environmental conscience, they would be better served to talk about fuel consumption and emission controls, real things that might be of interest to an informed consumer. Especially when the audience they pander to with misleading ads is just as likely to be protesting Jeep’s auto emissions on the same street corner where they protest hunting and sealing. Or to put it bluntly, the so-called "hook and bullet crowd" are probably more likely to buy SUV’s and 4x4 pickups than the armchair environmentalists. Seems there should be a stronger relationship between DaimlerChrysler and the outdoors community than the relationship of err and forgive.

Maybe DaimlerChrysler just doesn’t get it. Maybe they don’t understand that you shouldn’t attack your target consumer. But maybe we just don’t get it either, when we believe that months of public insult can be undone by very quiet and un-public retraction and apology. Or to quote Albert Einstein, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them."