The advertising industry's long and profitable relationship with famous faces continued apace this week, with a roster of talent that ranged from the culinary to the celestial.
Stanley Tucci, who played the long-suffering assistant to Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada," appeared in a campaign for TJ Maxx, the discount retailer, in a spot that required him to project something resembling remorse. William Shatner, the actor who has been appearing in Priceline commercials for so long that he has outlasted several of the company's chief executives, was shown reclining on a beach lounger, clothed. Carmelo Anthony, the basketball player, took on coaching duties for CeraVe, the skincare brand that is part of the L'Oréal portfolio.
Elsewhere, Hinge, the dating application that has positioned itself as the app "designed to be deleted" (a tagline that its parent company, Match Group, presumably hopes users will not take too literally), directed its attention toward Generation Z. Dove, the Unilever soap brand that has spent two decades telling women they are beautiful, made what was described as its World Cup debut. Apple continued its long-running courtship of students and their tuition-paying parents with a campaign for the Mac.
The week's most effective advertisement, according to EDO, the measurement firm, was a spot for KFC encouraging viewers to live life to the fullest — advice that the fried chicken chain has been dispensing, in one form or another, since Colonel Sanders first appeared on television screens in the 1960s.
It was, in other words, a fairly typical week on Madison Avenue: celebrities collected their fees, brands competed for attention, and the machinery of persuasion hummed along as it has for decades, largely untroubled by the question of whether anyone had anything particularly new to say.
Original story published in adweek.com: "Ads of the Week: 10 Campaigns That Caught Our Eye, From Dove to Hinge"