Celebrity (and fake) endorsements and advertising.

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Jericho
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Celebrity (and fake) endorsements and advertising.

Post by Jericho » Thu, 13. Jul 17, 16:59

What are your views on hiring famous actors or celebrities to advertise products?

I've never really understood the whole "Well, if George Cloony drinks that Nescafe coffee, it must be, erm, good? Bad? Expensive? I'm really not sure."

Why does George Cloony drinking coffee mean it's good? Does that mean that all the other Hollywood A-Listers also drink Nescafe? Or do they drink different brands, which must be exactly equal in quality to the stuff George drinks?



There's a McDonald's breakfast advert on at the moment here in the UK on the radio. I hear it every morning. The voice over sounds like it's Sarah Millican doing it with her distinctive accent and delivery... But, at the same time... It sounds like it isn't quite her...

So what is the deal here? "Oh, Sarah Millican thinks McDonald Breakfasts are nice, I must buy one"... except maybe it isn't her. But it is DEFINITELY supposed to be her, the pauses and breathing are in the same places as her delivery.

A quick google search does not reveal if it is her or not.

And then we have Hugh Dennis and Chris Barrie(Arnold Rimmer). For a while, these two guys did just about every voice-over for every advert. Barrie's was usually an accent or impression... So... Again, why? Why pay extra for Chris Barrie (with his distinctive voice) and pay him to do a different accent... While you still recognize it's him?


"That sounds like Red Dwarf's Rimmer doing a Glaswegian accent!!! I must buy this product!!!"

My mum lives abroad, and her access to English birthday cards is limited, so I usually get some crappy FunkyPigeon.com card with their aweful font on the inside (Thanks mum!!!). One year however, she managed to buy an actual English birthday card and send it over.

The cover was a caricature drawing of Ant & Dec (Google them if you don't know), because apparently I really like Ant & Dec (Nope, no idea why she thought that, although I do love Let's get ready to Rumble)

And, wonderfully, when you opened the card, it played a birthday message from Ant and Dec...

Except it clearly was neither Ant nor Dec doing the voice. And, come to think of it, nowhere on the card did it say it was Ant or Dec, or that the drawing was supposed to be Ant or Dec... And there in tiny print on the back of the card, was the message:

"Celebrity impersonation by John Smith" (Can't recall his real name). So although legally they never claimed it was Ant or Dec, they admit that this talent-less voice guy was doing an impression of 2 unnamed celebrities. He did a really bad job as well.



Even worse are the shampoo commercials where an actress starts talking, and her name appears at the bottom of the screen. "That's right! We've chosen this actress as the face of our product, who is so famous, you can't even recognize her!"

It's now gotten to the stage where they can just write any name they want in the corner, and we assume that they are famous, and that somehow makes us buy the shampoo? Because she's worth it?
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pjknibbs
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Post by pjknibbs » Thu, 13. Jul 17, 17:07

People tend to think like famous people are their friends--they probably speak to them more than their actual friends in a lot of cases, even though they can't answer back! I tend to ignore adverts anyway, regardless of whether they're fronted by a celeb or not; I find goods and services that work for me and use them, I don't switch to something else because a guy on TV tells me it's better.

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Post by linolafett » Thu, 13. Jul 17, 17:37

Man Jericho! My spam senses went crazy when i saw that thread popping up here :D Thread topic sounds similiar to some generic spambot stuff :D
Thats all i wanted to say, back to topic :P
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Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Thu, 13. Jul 17, 18:09

Gee! That last post sounded just like the famous linolafett from Egosoft! I guess they hired an internet double just to do this thread.

Seriously, I think that all (real) celebrities that endorse products should be contracted to use that product frequently for a year subject to random external audit as a part of their advertising contracts. I would love to think of some of them smearing on the wonder-cream each night, or spending an hour a day on a foot massager and muscle stimulator!

Oh, and especially so if the celebrity claims to own the firm that makes the product.
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matthewfarmery
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Post by matthewfarmery » Thu, 13. Jul 17, 19:38

Dislike adverts in general, but those with celebrities in them, just seems pretty worse. lets take the Sun life over 50 plan, Michael Parkinson adds, What makes this the nation's no 1 choice? because he is able to say it?? or paid a lot of money to say it? But then we get the parrot adds (same company) that more or less says the same thing.

I'm starting to get pretty sick seeing him on the TV, and other adds that are so called endorsed by celebs. And yes, the perfumer adds, makeup adds are just as bad.

Can't say I like many of those makup adds, especially those that go over the top to make the woman so damn horrible.

But anyway, for the celeb adds, they will of course get a lot of money out of it, but the real problem now is, can adds be trusted? no, they can't. sure there been adds that have been removed, but the fact they they get aired in the first place just shows how lacks the standards are sometimes.

But that another story. But generally, I hate adds in general, especailly the bloody silly and over the top ones.
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Post by Rapier » Thu, 13. Jul 17, 19:46

I believe the celebrities are hired for ads/endorsements because of what they represent to a particular demographic the advertiser is targeting - not so much, "I like person X so I must eat what they eat" (though there are a few examples of that). For example, you don't hire George Clooney just because you want his fans to buy your product; you hire him because you want your product to be seen as suave, sophisticated and mature, but with a sense of humour (probably - I think that's what they're getting at). You don't necessarily have to be a fan to have built up that association with the person. Even if it's a celebrity you don't know, you get an association just from saying 'Actress' or 'Model'.

Chris Barrie and Hugh Dennis are both good impersonators; I believe they both worked on Spitting Image in the '80s. As well as famous people, they'd also be able to roll out a range of voices/accents for your advert. You could then choose which you felt was best toward the end of the process once you had the whole package (visual, music, voice), which I'm sure was seen as an advantage. I'm not sure they were necessarily chosen for their 'name' (though that may have helped at times in their careers they were in the public consciousness).



And then there's Chef Excellence - An Excellent Product Endorser!
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Len5
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Post by Len5 » Thu, 13. Jul 17, 23:44

I guess it also helps that celebs are also in the media outside of the ads, so when you see a celeb in a movie, you automatically think about the product he/she promotes.
And there's a surprisingly large number of people that want to be like celebs, so they do/use what they do/use.

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Re: Celebrity (and fake) endorsements and advertising.

Post by Redvers Ganderpoke » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 16:24

Jericho wrote: Even worse are the shampoo commercials where an actress starts talking, and her name appears at the bottom of the screen. "That's right! We've chosen this actress as the face of our product, who is so famous, you can't even recognize her!"
"Who's that? "
"Who?"
"What's she been in?"
"Daytime TV? "
"Doing what?"

and I still don't know who they are. I try to avoid adverts at all costs.
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Bishop149
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Re: Celebrity (and fake) endorsements and advertising.

Post by Bishop149 » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 18:19

Jericho wrote:... except maybe it isn't her. But it is DEFINITELY supposed to be her, the pauses and breathing are in the same places as her delivery.
Oh God the one of these that absolutely irritates the crap out of me is a Halifax (a bank for non UK types) one which has decided to use the Flintstones. Here it is.

The voice actors that did Fred and Wilma are very dead, so they have obviously used someone else. That someone else however IMO sounds almost NOTHING like the original (Fred in particular, Wilma is slightly better).
What is the point? Are they thinking "Huh its an old show, no one will notice / remember anyway!". . . . If that was true then why would it be a good advert idea!!
People are either gonna go "Oh cool, the Flintstones! Yay nostalgia!" and then be disappointed or not understand what the hell animated cavemen are doing in a bank advert.
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Jericho
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Re: Celebrity (and fake) endorsements and advertising.

Post by Jericho » Mon, 17. Jul 17, 08:51

Bishop149 wrote:
The voice actors that did Fred and Wilma are very dead, so they have obviously used someone else. That someone else however IMO sounds almost NOTHING like the original (Fred in particular, Wilma is slightly better).
What is the point? Are they thinking "Huh its an old show, no one will notice / remember anyway!". . . . If that was true then why would it be a good advert idea!!
People are either gonna go "Oh cool, the Flintstones! Yay nostalgia!" and then be disappointed or not understand what the hell animated cavemen are doing in a bank advert.

"Let's get a mortgage with the Halifax! They have the Flintstones!!!"

Wha?
(I actually have my mortgage with them, but I SWEAR that wasn't the reason! They had a very low interest rate and I swap every 2 years. God my life is dull).



When I first joined IBM, we had an introduction video bigging-up IBM and how amazing it is and what a wonderful place to work it is. (Even though we'd all been hired). It was voiced by George Clooney.

He kept saying "We at IBM..." Except, no, you don't work at IBM. You're George Clooney. A very very very bored George Clooney judging by the sound of it
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Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 17. Jul 17, 13:40

Surely IBM could easily enough program their own George Clooney voiceover? I suppose that lawsuit avoidance may be an issue though.

I'm sure that the Clooney advertising contract with IBM was considered sufficient linkage to allow the use of a 'royal' we. :wink:
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Re: Celebrity (and fake) endorsements and advertising.

Post by matthewfarmery » Mon, 17. Jul 17, 14:11

Bishop149 wrote:
Jericho wrote:... except maybe it isn't her. But it is DEFINITELY supposed to be her, the pauses and breathing are in the same places as her delivery.
Oh God the one of these that absolutely irritates the crap out of me is a Halifax (a bank for non UK types) one which has decided to use the Flintstones. Here it is.

The voice actors that did Fred and Wilma are very dead, so they have obviously used someone else. That someone else however IMO sounds almost NOTHING like the original (Fred in particular, Wilma is slightly better).
What is the point? Are they thinking "Huh its an old show, no one will notice / remember anyway!". . . . If that was true then why would it be a good advert idea!!
People are either gonna go "Oh cool, the Flintstones! Yay nostalgia!" and then be disappointed or not understand what the hell animated cavemen are doing in a bank advert.
And before that, they had Topcat, but yes, totally silly for a UK advert, plus considering the new house was still in the USA, why then go to a british bank for a US house?

and before that, thunderbirds, again very silly, So what is up with using old cartoons to try and sell products that aren't relevant to the cartoons in question?

What also drives me up the wall are the bloody sky broadband adds, and telephone, how they keep on using characters from recent blockbuster film, not long ago it was lego batman, now it's Despicable Me 3.

And then there are all the annoying BT adds.

adds in general just drive me up the wall, especially if they are so silly.

OH yes, another set of silly adds, Money supermarket, They have also been bloody silly and their recent ones (Skeletor and He-man, less said the better. )

And last but not least, the bloody annoying Go compare adds, ever since they brought back that bloody Welshman back, But he was far worse before, but even though he is allowed do a few styles of singing, he still becomes a major turn off everytime I hear one of his adds. the company clearly not learned from their mistakes last time, when they over did him. Now he doing loads and loads, and they just a turn off.
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Re: Celebrity (and fake) endorsements and advertising.

Post by Rapier » Mon, 17. Jul 17, 22:08

Jericho wrote: "Let's get a mortgage with the Halifax! They have the Flintstones!!!"

Wha?
(I actually have my mortgage with them, but I SWEAR that wasn't the reason! They had a very low interest rate and I swap every 2 years. God my life is dull).
I think it's more the bait for people of a certain age (that they want to attract). We pay attention because it's something we identify with - the link to Halifax is more subliminal - or a slow burn.
(I has my mortgage with the Halifax - they calculated the interest wrong by about 2 pence every month. When I told them, they refused to admit it but offered me £25 'for the inconvenience'. They ended up offering me £800 to avoid admitting they were doing anything wrong.)

I watch a lot of cycling on Eurosport. The team sponsors get time with the riders so you get some weird adverts - here's two-times world champion Peter Sagan (who likes to pull a wheelie over the finish line) advertising ... cooker extraction fans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y6rcODQx0c
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Jericho
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Re: Celebrity (and fake) endorsements and advertising.

Post by Jericho » Tue, 18. Jul 17, 09:55

matthewfarmery wrote:
OH yes, another set of silly adds, Money supermarket, They have also been bloody silly and their recent ones (Skeletor and He-man, less said the better. )

Erm... I actually like that one :o
I've never been to moneysupermarket, but I like Skelator and he-man running around the streets :)
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