Backstory on the Surly Badger

It tickles me to say the least that my post on my guilty pleasure, the Johnson Automotive 'Surly Badger' commercials, has created more traffic than any other post in the last 90 days. This campaign has a lot of fans out there. My parents came to visit recently, and howled every time one of the spots came on. I want to quote one commenter from the original post, who was kind enough to share the back story on this campaign. Thanks to Kevin for sharing this:

I recently bought a new car from Johnson Automotive. They all had badger pins on their shirts. I was talking with the manager and told him I work in advertising as an Art Director and loved the badger spots. He told me the full story. Basically Mr. Johnson tried to get in touch with the Martin Agency but couldn't get past the secretary. She said they didn't do car dealer ads. So he hounded the CEO or some other top level person until they would meet with him. I think he ended up calling on a day when the secretary was off. He told the guy he would give him a brand new Lexus just for meeting with him. The guy flew to NC and said he had a few minutes to meet. A few hours later they had reached an agreement. I guess the spots were produced out in California. And from what I hear it wasn't cheap. I've only seen the 5 posted on YouTube but apparently there are about 9 total.