10 Adverts Featuring Film Stars That Didn't Actually Suck

By Brad Williams /

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Did anyone honestly rush out to buy Chanel No.5 after Brad Pitt€™s existential ramblings? Was Robert Downey Jr really expected to shift more copies of Call Of Duty? Wes Anderson and American Express; WTF!? Why would Bruce Willis make me want to sign up for Sky Broadband? And don€™t even get me started on the Nintendo DS / Wii campaign. Film celebrities have a tragic relationship with TV advertisements. For the most part, anytime a Hollywood A-Lister signs on to affiliate themselves with some random product for buckets of cash; it quite often feels exactly like that. It€™s pointless, and rarely must it have any impact on product sales€at least, one would hope that it doesn€™t. Surely the general public are not affected by such unabashed tripe? And then you have the Japanese market - a whole new world of shameless and lurid catastrophes. Arnie selling energy drinks like a crazed Manga genie creature, Nicolas Cage getting Pachinko Fever and Michael J. Fox...trimming hedges!?; tragically funny stuff that will make your toes curl AND give you nightmares. But occasionally, someone somewhere, some hotshot ad genius working for the modern equivalent of Stirling Cooper Draper Price, has a bright idea that actually works. On occasion, a film star is approached to be a part of some advertising that is really rather brilliant. Here are 10 glorious examples of when someone€™s celebrity status serves to enhance the advertisement that they take part in.

10. Ewan McGregor €“ Davidoff Adventure

So we all now that Obi Wan Kenobi likes to fanny about on his motorbike; he made sure we knew, by making a billion documentaries about it. We also know that real men should be into adventure and all that. So it makes perfect sense for Davidoff to show Ewan McGregor going about on his bike, having adventures, to demonstrate the essence of this new fragrance. One would imagine that weeks on the road, camping out in the wilderness, would smell more like must and onions than anything you€™d want to bottle and spray on your neck. But still, you can€™t fault the ideology portrayed here, and McGregor is a perfect fit for the message. It is one of those rare things; a fragrance advert that makes sense!