There is a long tradition in advertising of founders putting themselves on camera to vouch for their products, a practice that dates at least to Frank Perdue and his chickens and continues through the various mattress entrepreneurs who appear to sleep very well indeed. The founder of Back Market, the global refurbished electronics company, has taken the genre in a more filial direction.

In a new campaign, Thibaud Hug de Larauze does not merely promise that his company's phones are expertly tested. He swears on his mother's life. And then he produces the mother.

The spot, created by the agency Harold, shows a team with clipboards methodically cataloging the possessions of Valerie, Mr. Hug de Larauze's mother, as collateral against the company's quality guarantee. Plants, picture frames, frying pans, safety pins — all of it apparently at stake should a refurbished iPhone prove less than satisfactory.

"We wanted a way to make the Back Market promise impossible to doubt," Mr. Hug de Larauze said in a statement. "So, we picked the highest stakes a person can offer."

(One assumes the company's legal department had thoughts about this.)

Tomas Coleman, an executive creative director at Harold, said the approach was designed to let sincerity emerge from absurdity. "That tension between the ridiculous gesture and the real promise is the whole idea," he said.

The campaign is rolling out first in New York across television, video on demand, out-of-home, social media and audio, with European markets to follow in coming weeks. Back Market, which was founded in Paris in 2014, has been working to position refurbished devices as a mainstream choice rather than a compromise, a message that requires overcoming considerable consumer skepticism about quality.

Whether mothers' possessions will prove more persuasive than traditional warranty language remains to be seen. Valerie, for her part, looks appropriately concerned.

Original story published in Muse by Clios | Discover the latest creative marketing and advertising news. Muse by Clio is the premier news site covering creativity in advertising and beyond.: "Back Market Founder Swears on His Mother’s Life | Muse by Clios", by David Gianatasio