"scuzzed-out hippies"- Who would you rather be associated with, soccer moms or rednecks?
Actually "scuzzed-out hippies" group are one of Jeeps biggest market shares. I didn't know we still called young college age guys hippies??
Maybe they are "free-spirits"
Or maybe they really are the target market for the Patriot and Compass. Hum, I am sure the marketing folks at Jeep have put no thought in their ad campaign and have a no idea what they are doing.

Have you seen some of the ads for the Compass? Like the trashman surfing it down the highway? Or the Patriot comic book? ...

The guys jamming to the liftgate boombox maybe look the part, but the Weezer singer lookalike guy filling the jerrycan with slushy goodness and the sweaty bowling shirt guy riding shotgun don't look like any Jeepers I've ever seen on the trails or elsewhere, and they're certainly not the types you'd see in a Grand or Commander. Or a Wrangler for that matter. I can't see those types changing their own tire, or their own oil, or hitting the trails, or even going camping.

Maybe you're right and they really are the target market for the Patriot and Compass... Jeep is going for the non-Jeep-traditional market with those vehicles...

At least the other Patriot ads portray some type of rugged outdoorsiness.

If you recall past Jeep advertising with the Cherokee (XJ) some of it showed off reading but a lot of the images were around town and in everyday non off-road settings. That is the great thing about Jeeps. They have great off-road abilities but most will never see the Rubicon Trail but people just like knowing it could conquer it if needed.

I don't have an issue with the overall concept of the ad, I actually think it's quite clever -- filling the gas can with slushy people fuel vs gasoline to tout the vehicles' relative fuel efficiency -- I just disagree with their choice of rather slovenly looking urbanites as the owners of the vehicles.

Jeep used to have some of the best ads on TV, now they've got some of the worst in terms of branding. Hummer and Nissan have far better marketing than Jeep.

Maybe since everyone knows Jeep like they know Coca Cola they don't have to sell the off-roadness of the brand like Nissan or Hummer might. When you say Jeep, people just think of hard-core offroading and they think Wrangler, which you don't have to explain.
When I think Nissan, I think Z car, not Pathfinder. When you say Hummer I think Hollywood and Urban rapper. They need to remind people that Hummer is an off-road vehicle because it is thought of by most as an urban status symbol.
The only two brand that come to mind as true off-roaders are Jeep and Land Rover.

You're probably right about Jeep's "need" (or lack there of) for marketing. I was thinking about that exact thing as I was about to comment on Toyota's excellent marketing of the new FJ Cruiser vs Jeep's virtually non-existent marketing of the new JK Wranglers... (and what little they've done is awful).

Then I realized the Jeep Wrangler just doesn't need that much marketing beyond what Jeep is going to get for "free" from the magazines and website coverage of the vehicle. Case in point... Toyota sold 6,057 FJC's in March 2007. Jeep sold over 2x that many JKs the same month. Wrangler sales of 13,397 units for March 2007 marked the vehicles' best month ever (64% higher than March 2006). That's combined sales of 2-dr and 4-dr (I've yet to see them break them out individually unfortunately) so it's not entirely apples to apples, more like apples to pears (which is a lot closer than apples to oranges).

This store is really out in the middle of nowhere; the sign says cash only.

What's to become of the young girl and her foot fungus? Hopefully that spray medicine works.