What would Charlotte's Super Bowl ad look like?

The commercial that has the most lingering buzz from the Super Bowl seems to be this Chrysler ad featuring Eminem. The thing is, it's not an ad for Chrysler as much as it is an ad for Detroit. Everybody has this image of Detroit as a burned-out, bankrupt city, and a lot of that is justified. But there's another side, of course, and this Detroit looks pretty great.



WCNC producer Jeremy Markovich, who's on Twitter as @deftlyinane, had some interesting thoughts after seeing the ad. I'm combining a few of his tweets here:

The Chrysler ad makes me wonder, could you do a two minute spot with this much soul about Charlotte? What would it say? Who would it show? How would it make you feel? What would it sell? Is this a corporate town? Could you do a Charlotte ad that doesn't feel like a tourism video? Cause the Detroit ad sure ain't. Who would get out of this car in Charlotte? Mayor Pat? John P. Kee? Dale Jr.? Hugh McColl? K-Ci and JoJo? Steve Smith?

Good questions from Jeremy... so now I turn those questions to you. If you did a commercial for Charlotte, what would be in it?

I'm sure we'll get our fair share of sarcasm in the comments, and that's fine. But I'd like to see some of y'all take it seriously. Sometimes it seems like the only two views we hear of Charlotte are the shiny-corporate view, or the everything-sucks view. But there's a real city here, with its own story. I'm wondering how you'd tell it.

And if you've got some ideas and a video camera, go ahead and make a version of your own! We're not looking for commercial-grade here... a Flip cam and a good idea is enough. Email me the results at ttomlinson@charlotteobserver.com.