This one’s for <lj user=”freddiefraggles”?
Adwatch #137 - Jeremy Clarkson
BT (British Telecom) recently used Jeremy Clarkson to front one of their commercials. An odd choice because surveys have shown that at least 50% of the British public detest Jeremy Clarkson.
Actually, I made that up. The real figure might well be higher. The only person that is definitely known to adore Clarkson (apart, presumably, from his wife) is his best buddy, the pretentiously initialled journalist A.A. Gill. The two hang out together which at least has the advantage that if you poured a bucket of cold sick over Clarkson, some of it would also fall on Gill.
This might not matter if you had a niche product that was designed to appeal to car-worshipping, racist, homophobic males of limited intelligence. But BT has a universal product that it wishes to sell to every householder in Britain.
I love it.