Ad of the Day: Dodge

What do you need to create a groundbreaking compact car? Smart people, great ideas—and a healthy sense of humor.

That's according to this entertaining 90-second spot from Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, Ore., for the 2013 Dodge Dart, offering a easy step-by-step instruction guide for designing and engineering a worthwhile entry in the competitive compact-car segment. Basically, you need lots of coffee, not a lot of other commitments, not a lot of committees or finance guys, and a whole lot of refining and refining and refining. The playful rapid-fire presentation is vintage W+K, which has built reserves of wry humor into the Dodge brand for several years now (from George Washington to the beheaded robot). In a nice touch, the Dart spot—directed by Christopher Riggert of Biscuit Filmworks—also features a celebrity endorsement by Tom Brady, in the form of Brady questioning whether he's even right for the role.

The spot's energy is derived largely from a solid choice of soundtrack: the Jay-Z and Kanye West track "No Church in the Wild," from their Watch the Throne album. The spot, titled "How to Change Cars Forever," also introduces the tagline "New rules," to emphasize that Dodge is redefining what a compact car can be.

"Adding a dose of fun, creative license and Dodge brand humor, 'How to Change Cars Forever' captures the meticulous process of starting with a simple idea and developing it into a revolutionary new car, including the angst and pressure of a blank page, trials and errors of the early stages, and molding, shaping and testing the Dodge Dart until it was right," says Olivier Francois, marketing chief at Chrysler Group. "We wanted to provide a peek inside what it takes to bring a new car to fruition."

W+K continues to make such glimpses worth your while.