Hello, you may know me. I am Jacki, and I love to watch television. When I say watch, I really mean WATCH… not just passively pay attention while I do other tasks. I will wonder what lives the characters are living off-screen. Yes, even the ones who are only in a single episode of whatever show I am watching. Sometimes even characters who are only in one scene.
That is because some shows give us the gift of caring about characters who only exist for one scene. One show that did that amazingly well was “Mad Men”. I adored that show and am in a constant state of rewatch, so to say I analyze commercials would be an understatement.
Let me just say… I pretty much hate the commercials I see nowadays. The national ones, I mean. You know, the ones you see on Netflix or YouTube or Paramount Plus. Not the local ones I am lucky enough to catch on my antenna television. I love those. They feel so human.
I get especially angry at the commercials where a celebrity is shilling for a product they definitely aren’t using themselves. I have shared this anger with everyone who watches a television show with me. Like my friend Aubrey… we watch so much together; we have a text thread about celebrities who wouldn’t use whatever product they were using on their teeth on TV to sell us.
- Jeff Goldblum doesn’t use Apartments.com
- Girl, Keegan-Michael Key is repping Choice Hotels? Is he okay?
- KMK is also selling Ore-Ida Products!?!
- He MIGHT have some frozen fries in his basement freezer!
But then there are the surprises like:
- Danny DeVito one hundred percent goes to Jersey Mike’s
- He gets a year’s free sandwiches card from corporate with his contract
- and is happy to use it
- He uses it to buy food for the unhoused
- But still always gets himself something when he picks up the order
- He uses it to buy food for the unhoused
- and is happy to use it
- He gets a year’s free sandwiches card from corporate with his contract
- and
- Billy Bob Thornton totally drinks Michelob Ultra
- or
- Will Ferrell probably eats Lay’s
But the fact that these celebs probably don’t actually use these products is only one of the reasons celebrity commercials make me so angry.
Reason Number Two
These commercials are removing an important training ground for up-and-coming actors who are struggling to pay their bills. I’m gonna sound like I’m old-womaning here, but I’m gonna say this anyway:
Back in my day, the commercials starred nobodies. Sometimes these nobodies became somebodies, and these early commercials were unearthed, and everyone squees over them. This is an exciting time as a fan (and maybe as an actor? I dunno, I am not one). Now, those roles (and the more creative commercials that came with them) are being eaten up by folks who are already famous.
This also removes an important training ground (I don’t know if I can get this out of my head onto the screen, but I’m going to try). Like, commercials are where actors learn how to be or, I dunno, exist on camera. It’s how they build a sizzle reel. It’s how agents and casting departments would know who had the “it” factor for the right-size screen.
And, yeah, yeah, I know. “Kids these days are filming themselves all the time.” But it’s more than just getting a face on film. It’s learning how to work with other people. It’s learning how far you’ll go to set boundaries and stand up for yourself. It’s learning to take direction.
It’s learning. It’s learning so that when the right role comes along, they’ll be ready. And I feel like it’s doing a disservice to the up-and-comers. They deserve a place to figure out what they’re good at, too, you know?
It makes me particularly sad to see a celebrity I felt respect for doing the walk-and-talk in front of the camera for a company that doesn’t give two shits about the population as a whole. But then, I try to hold celebs on a much lower pedestal than I previously did. Still makes me have an angry face, though.
Don’t worry, I still love awards season. That love shall never die.
And neither will my hatred for celebrities in commercials. Because I have a third (and final for now) reason for you.
Reason Number Three
Who do you think is paying for them? The big company that’s being advertised, you’re probably thinking. And you’d be right… to an extent. It comes out of their marketing budget. So, we’ll go with the Billy Bob Thornton Michelob Ultra ad as a through line here. Anheuser-Busch is paying $110 MILLION in World Cup ads alone. This ad is part of that spend.
So that $110 million goes into the budget for AB and is taken into account before a profit can be declared. That means the money you spend is creating that profit. Every time they raise that price, they’re using it to spend more on marketing. That they don’t really need.
People know about beer, y’all. I don’t think that sort of spend is necessary. So, when they decide to spend 3-5 million bucks on a celeb for their commercial, that’s basically coming out of your pocket. They’re saying, “It’s more important to us to slap a celeb in our commercial than it is to offer you a more economic price.”
An inexperienced actor would be so much cheaper.
I mean, Billy Bob is worth $45 mil (according to the internet). He’ll be fine without your beer money. For just a FRACTION of what you’re paying him, Anheuser-Busch, you could be MAKING a struggling actor’s year.
I dunno, we’re watching something on Netflix with commercials, so I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I just had to get some of it out of my head. (there’s so much more, y’all)
Do you have any strong feels about celebrities in commercials? Or did I discover a new special interest of mine?
