If a famous person sways your purchasing behaviour, you’re likely an idiot. Actors and other celebs rake in great coin shamelessly hocking products to the teeming masses, be it life insurance, Preparation H, overpriced jeans, or underperforming vehicles. To them, the suitcase of cash emits the siren song, not the product. (Don’t start up about athletes and sports-branded clothing. We’re not going in that direction.)
No company covets celebrity endorsements quite like automakers. Whether it’s longtime Anglophile Tom Brady shilling for Aston Martin or LeBron James’ sudden love for Kia’s spectacularly slow-selling K900, nothing gets eyes on the product faster than having someone famous stand next to it. Surely, none of us would ever fall for such a thing.
Celebrity endorsements, if you want to call it that, only bolsters a non-mouth-breather’s buying decision if it reinforces a previously held position. Already angling for a Chrysler Newport? Well, your favourite star from, say, Barney Miller, agrees it’s a sensible purchase. And several dollars less than Caprice! However, if said celebrity is someone you desire, rather than just respect or admire, it could be argued that there’s some subtle, subconscious influence at work. It it enough to tip the scales in favor of a certain product?
That’s something only you can answer.
The list of celebrity pitchmen (and women) is nearly endless, so you’re spoiled for choice here. There’s the cast members of NBC’s Bonanza or Bewitched selling themselves out to Chevrolet in the 1960s (Robert Vaughn just loves the second-generation Corvair), or Rod Serling’s post-Twilight Zone money grab for Ford’s Thunderbird.
Nice, but what about something the American everyman can really sink his teeth into? What about…a Mazda…from the 1980s? This could be a tough sell to those weaned on Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs. Better get Jim Rockford James Garner on the case.
Sure, he exclusively drove a Firebird Esprit on the show, but that’s only because of a distinct lack of Mazda 323s in the late ’70s.
Garner’s a Grade-A guy, but Dennis Hopper and Sean Connery are likely to get overseas buyers into a new car. Classy.
Or, can we interest you in a painfully badge-engineered late-model Mercury? It really attracts the attention of sleazy guys sitting outside coffee shops, probably writing their “book.”
Alright, have at it, Best and Brightest. We’ve all spend more time than we’d care to admit glued to the TV, and have suffered through countless endorsements from big-shot celebs. Surely one of those spots hit the mark.
[Image: Kia Motors]
I dont have one but my wifes favorite right now is the Matthew Mcconaughey for Lincoln. I can fast forward through all commercials except those. She was going to forgo getting a new RX350 for the MKX just due to his appearances. However she has since changed her mind but still wants to sleep with him……
Matt’s actually pretty endearing in those ads. He’s not your typical celebrity salesman, he’s just kinda hanging in or around the cars, free-associating. The one where he has a hallucination of seeing himself in the backseat and starts laughing is my favorite.
It is interesting how that works. I bought a new 2017 MKX this past March. The salesman, jokingly, asked me if McConaughey’s commercial influenced my decision. I said NO, and that I did not even recall that commercial, and I bought it for my own reasons….nobody else.
It amazes me how people let themselves be led by others. I don’t give 2 hoots in hell what any “celebrity” thinks about anything.
My wife wants to “sleep with” Duane Johnson, and I buy what he tells me to because I want him to like me and invite me over to his house.
Kate Walsh is right there with Hill Wagner
http://pics.celebritycarsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Kate-Walsh-Cadillac-Escalade.png
Denis Leary.
Dude is a REAL TOOL in more ways thinning, and annoys the ever-living sh!t out of many.
He’s a ramlant plagiarist, and a world-class suckup, on top of being non-funny, also.
A$$HOLE!
Bill Hicks (or should I say “Alex Jones”) frowns upon your shenanigans.
How could you beat Mister Ed, selling Studebakers?
Why does this thing delete YouTube links?
well Mr. Ed ‘sounds’ sincere
actors are favored for endorsements as they are trained to come across as sincere.
“always be sincere ……. wether you mean it or not.”
I always liked those ads from the 00s with Peter Stormare selling VWs
To date the best delivery of “OH, SNAP!”
I bought an 07 GTI when those ads were on TV. The car came with a funny DVD of those spots plus a more in-depth (humorous) look at “focus groups” used to create the GTI.
? Celebrities taking their cars to the pawn shop ? .
-Nate
Kate Walsh’s Cadillac commercials back in ’08 or so were great. Also like Mike Rowe for Ford.
George C. Scott pitching a Renault Alliance was just downright odd.
For some strange reason I thought of that one as well.
For “different”, how about Grace Jones for 1980’s Citroens?
https://youtu.be/TKNMTAAAUbE
Ricardo Montalban for Chrysler. Genuine Corinthian leather. He was slick.
And the dash is inlaid with the beaks of a thousand eagles.
It’s just that the luxury edition has so much more eagle, it saddens me to think of you missing out!
George C. Scott shilling for the Renault Alliance is the most painfully bad car endorsement I can think of. Maybe he was channeling his character from “Dr. Strangelove” for sheer absurdity.
The best? Either the Clint Eastwood Chrysler add or the ones with Ricardo Montalban. Seriously, I kinda want a Chrysler Cordoba just because Mr. Roarke from Fantasy Island drove one.
Hunter S. Thompson wrote an article about celebrity endorsements (in particular sports celebrities) in 1970 called The Temptations of Jean Claude Killey, who was touring with OJ Simpson hawking Camaros. It’s a neat look at what each athlete represented at the time as well as Thompson’s own worry about someone already rich and famous being willing to shill for more dollars giving up some of their integrity.
I suppose it’s different with actors.
Do I have a favorite? I guess it has to be Montalban out of respect for Wrath of Kahn.
Not a single spokesperson’s endorsement at all, but the question makes me smile and think about how I love Chrysler’s vehicles in The Beverly Hillbillies.
Love it. Love everything about it.
I didn’t even know Rod Serling did endorsements, but I guess I would pick him because Twilight Zone.
As a kid, I was more swayed by car placements in TV shows and movies. Loved Jim Rockford’s Camaro in the Rockford Files and McGarrett’s Mercury in Hawaii Five O.
James Garner had the most credibility since he was actually a very good race car driver. Another great driver was Jackie Stewart who hawked US Fords in the 1970s-80s, but in his case I have a hard time believing he actually thought a LTD or Tempo were well engineered cars.
Stewart was (is?) a long-time Ford guy (consultant?) outside of advertising, too.
Nobody buys a car (or any other product for that matter) because of a celebrity shill. But what it does do is grab your attention. If you are a b-ball fan and you see Lebron come on, you will pay attention and hence, you will at least partially watch the Kia commercial.
Advertising is a billion dollar industry because it works. Don’t kid yourself that it doesn’t. Otherwise why would Nike for example spend hundreds of millions of dollars on celebrity endorsements?
And product placement works too. Otherwise why are ‘General Lee’ Chargers in such great demand? And why did GM sell so many ‘Bandit’ style Trans Ams?
We are all suckers in one way, shape or form.
How does buying a Trans Am (or whatever) in part because you liked a movie turn you into a sucker?
Because buying a black ‘screaming chicken’ with a T-Roof will not result in you being able to outrun the law or have a young Sally Field as your girlfriend.
There is no rational, logical correlation between your needs and buying something because of a celebrity endorsement or its placement in a movie/show/video.
Of course, if you think that Lebron actually DRIVES a Kia, well…
He does (sometimes).
https://www.instagram.com/p/sU8TYViTIe/
Celeb endorsements do zero for me and often have the exact opposite effect.
No mention of Tiger Woods for Buick or Maria Sharapova for Porsche?
Kate Upton and Mercedes. There goes my money :D
When you need that extra push over the cliff, these VW’s go to 11:
Joe Isuzu
Beat me to it. :)
Still # 1.
:-)
The one where they squeeze Shaq into a Buick Verano is worthy of a few eye rolls.
Catrinel Menghia is memorable in the Fiat commercials. Who was that washed-up loser she was standing next to?
You gotta put Jill Wagner on your list!
The BMW Film with Madonna and Clive Owen was the best. Even the newer BMW Films are very well done. Is it an ad, or is it a short movie?
Sam Elliot in the Ram commercials are the best truck commercials since Like a Rock.
Jonathan Pryce for 1990s Infiniti was also excellent.
The author is correct….only idiots are influenced by celebrity endorsements. Shameless hucksterism on their part, pitched to idiots.
That comedian who shilled for the Pacifica. I kinda like that commercial. On the other hand, I resented Led Zepplin for trying to get me into a Cadillac.
Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Mercury-Cougar ‘at the sign of the cat’. Of course the debate is was she a celebrity prior to or because of those commercials.
Other than that, agree with Ricardo Montalban. Those commercials still resonate in our conscious more than 40 years after they first aired.
Montalban used to be fond of paraphrasing Jack Elam’s “five stages of an actor’s career”:
1. Who is Ricardo Montalbán?
2. Get me Ricardo Montalbán!
3. Get me a Ricardo Montalbán type.
4. Get me a young Ricardo Montalbán.
5. Who is Ricardo Montalbán?
Forgot Krusty the Klown. CANYONERO! “It’s not comedy that’s in my blood, it’s selling out.”
“They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house, I’m not made of stone!”
He’s been an admitted sell out from at least season 4 :)
My personal favorite is Lt. Buck Compton (Neal McDonough) appearing in the swaggerlicious ELR commercial that triggered every beta personality on earth.
Honorable mention goes to Kate Walsh in her Cadillac gig. She was smokin’.
Double honorable mention is Johnathan Pryce in the Infiniti campaigns of the 1990s.
I’d have to agree on the ELR commercial. It almost made me want a Cadillac.
Howie Long. Man step.
Case closed.
Frank and Nancy Sinatra for Imperial. Tina Turner in the back of a Plymouth Acclaim.
A celebrity has never made me want to buy a car. But the current Chevrolet `real people` ads are the first that make me NOT want to buy a particular brand.
For “different”, how about Grace Jones for 1980’s Citroens?
https://youtu.be/TKNMTAAAUbE
Bobby Darin for Kaiser Darrin.
” celebs rake in great coin shamelessly hocking products to the teeming masses,”
Hock means to pawn, while hawk means to sell. So “hawking” is what it should be here in the article. Hocked to the eyeballs? Well you’re in trouble. Phonetic T.O. pronunciation translated to spelling is incorrect here.
When it comes to celebs hawking cars, I get more interested in the motivations of why they did it than the product. Is it just for filthy lucre? Not a scintilla more motivation than outright selling of one’s fame? Can’t say I’ve ever really seen anything but greed. Writes off the celeb more than the product for me though there are small variations. Crocodile Dundee/Paul Hogan was unapologetic about his Outback pitch so that didn’t bother me. If they transparently lie or you can tell they have no clue about the vehicle they’re pushing and it’s all fake, well thumbs down on that “celeb”.
Carroll Shelby! Greatest huckster evah!
Singer Jack Jones as spokesman for the Chrysler New Yorker in the 70’s.
Paul Hogan and subie – a one trick pony that didn’t reflect the nerds that buy them.
A dead fascist’s Rolls. Felipe of Spain got 3 of those. His pa Juan Carlos of 5,000 lovers made them heritage. How’s that for endorsement?
The original owner had one known woman with a face like a horses arse.
Snoop Dogg in those Chrysler ads with Lee Iacocca.
Lindsay Wagner for Ford.
Ancient VW commercial with Basketball player, Wilt Chamberlain?, getting into an aircooled Bug.
Lets not forget Dustin Hoffman hawking the 1966 VW Typ III ‘Variant’ Fast back Sedan .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGdf9ea2olQ
-Nate
I don’t car who plugs a car, it makes no difference to me. The “ordinary people” Chevy ads are a minor turnoff, but right now, Chevy makes nothing that would interest me, at a price I can afford. I would be in a Tahoe if I could swing one though, or think hard about it, but the price is just crazy.