Bruce Springsteen is well-known for his refusal to do any sort of commercials or endorsements, but this Sunday just might be the day everything changes for The Boss.

Ad Age reports that various rumors are pointing to the possibility that Springsteen will appear in an ad for Jeep during the Super Bowl.  For one, Ad Age points out, a local Nebraska TV station highlighted a now-deleted tweet from an airport in Hastings, Nebraska that stated, “Bruce ‘The Boss’ Springsteen lands in Hastings to film a Jeep commercial in Blue Hill for the Super Bowl.”  Blue Hill is a small town south of Hastings.

Ad Age also notes that Nebraska paper The Lincoln Journal-Star carried a report of a chartered jet that flew to Hastings from New Jersey, and quoted a local sheriff as saying that a film crew had shot “something” on the Republican River bridge in Webster County, Nebraska.

A spokesperson for Stellantis, which owns Jeep, told Ad Age that it doesn’t “comment on speculation,” but it did confirm that Jeep is running an ad in the second half of the Super Bowl on Sunday.  Ad Age also notes that Oliver Francois, the marketing chief for the company that owns Jeep, has been trying, and failing, to get Springsteen to do an ad for years.

So why would Springsteen agree to do a commercial now?  Ad Age speculates that the pandemic might finally be enough to lure The Boss into doing an ad for a strong American brand that would contain some kind of message of unity or social activism.  Stay tuned.

By Andrea Dresdale
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