Brands want us to think that we need their products to land that dream job, take that dream date home to bed or be that perfect parent to our children. Reality, of course, is much more complicated. Unlike the actors in commercials, not everyone in life has straight teeth, perfect hair or the driving ability to park an SUV atop a mesa.

Marketers, of course, believe that by selling us a varnished version of our tarnished real lives, the public will gladly hand over its money for a taste of the life exalted in the advertising. And that’s fine. This is how human beings have sold products to each other for centuries. This dynamic, however, may be changing. In many respects, the public is becoming more self-aware and self-accepting. The public wants models that look more like regular people and products that don’t specifically target stereotypes of men or women.

The public also wants brands to recognize our humanity, and that humanity includes our need to be old, vulnerable and far from perfect. Enter NFL star Tony Siragusa, the new face of Depend Guards and Shields—products aimed at men with bladder leakage problems. You heard that correctly, leakage. It’s not a word many advertising copywriters would circle and say, “Let’s leverage the power of this word.” continued…

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This was a no-brainer for Reebok. Of course, the proactive individuals at UltraViolet who created the anti-Ross petition probably had a bit more to do with the decision than this humble blog, and we’re not the sort of people to take credit for others’ work, but we’d like to think of ourselves as members of the chorus.

On a final note, if Reebok or any other brand wants to hire a spokesperson with “street cred” in the future, they might want to refrain from choosing a guy whose entire backstory is a product of his own imagination. Just sayin’.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The company’s social media team noticed that comedienne Ana Gasteyer had been tweeting about her weight loss experience and brought her feed to executives’ attention. They quickly moved in to secure her as a spokesperson — and now she’s created a series of TV and online ads set to debut this month. We can see why they’d be interested after reading tweets like these:

Hey @weightwatchers Volunteered to churn butter at Pioneer Day/30 min Sat How many #activitypoints? Need tocover 11flapjacks/8 biscuits

— Ana Gasteyer (@AnaGasteyer) January 12, 2013

Hey @weightwatchers I binged on Children’s Gummy Vites can it be my cheat day?

— Ana Gasteyer (@AnaGasteyer) December 10, 2012

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We have a feeling that Ben is a little tired of strangers approaching him and yelling “Affleck!” in a poor imitation of a certain feathered insurance spokesman. Too bad–we’ve just received word from our sources on the inside that the Aflac duck (sadly no longer voiced by Gilbert Gottfried) has planned a “soup to nuts social media campaign” to promote his “phonetically favorite filmmaker” on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #Aflac4Affleck.

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Like the Beyoncé deal, Swift/Diet Coke will be a “long-term” relationship between everyone’s favorite low-calorie soda and everyone’s favorite musical memoirist that will integrate Swift “into all key marketing efforts” for Diet Coke’s Stay Extraordinary campaign. Her latest album title, Red, even complements the brand. It’s almost like she knew this would happen…

We think we get Coca-Cola’s strategy here: Swift, despite being one of the world’s biggest pop stars, has a reputation for being close to her (overwhelmingly female) fan base. The video she released announcing the partnership and encouraging supporters to visit Diet Coke’s Facebook page is a good example of this personal branding aesthetic in action:

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We’re more interested in the nature of the relationship between the two parties, which seems to have broken new ground when it comes to sponsorships and invites the question: Who is promoting whom?

Pepsi calls the contract a “brand ambassador” deal, and the accompanying New York Times headline mentions Pepsi’s focus on “collaboration”. What do these terms mean, exactly? Well, Beyoncé won’t just appear on Pepsi products, star in commercials, and perform in next year’s Pepsi-sponsored Super Bowl: Her contract also includes “a multimillion-dollar fund to support the singer’s chosen creative projects.”

Correct us if we’re wrong, but this move is unprecedented—or at the very least extremely rare.

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The problem: Her contract stipulated that she lose all of her “baby weight” in order to highlight the effectiveness of the Weight Watchers program—and she only had time to make one “look at me now” commercial before her second pregnancy put the brakes on all other promo opportunities.

We have less than zero interest in discussing Simpson’s personal life, but back in September we wondered whether Weight Watchers would regret hiring her despite all the tabloid attention. Our next question, from a marketing perspective: should the company just give up and find a new spokesperson? As we see it, they have only two other options:

1. Claim that Simpson completed her program before getting pregnant (and accept the fact that she can no longer make Weight Watchers commercials)
2. Wait nine months and do the whole thing all over again.

Neither of those are particularly appealing for the business. Weight Watchers’ PR manager commented on the story by saying:

“Any questions related to Jessica’s personal life can only be answered by her team. We do not disclose financial details about our relationships with any of our ambassadors.”

Translation: We’re pissed. So what’s the best way for brands to deal with celebrity sponsors who veer off script?

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Nothing puts the fickle, unpredictable and compelling nature of public opinion into perspective quite like the online celebrity phenomenon. Together we scour YouTube and pluck people from obscurity, elevating them to a state of international fame that is both instant and ephemeral. From the cute and the quirky to the talented and the straight-up freakish, the public loves online celebrities.

Now Samsung hopes to leverage the power of this phenomenon by recruiting one Laina. She’s famous for her “Overly Attached Girlfriend” videos–you know, the ones where she and her wacky eyes convey an unsettling but hilarious message to an undisclosed boyfriend. The videos have accumulated 13 million views to date, so something about her gag clearly connects with the public.

Online celebrities are, of course, a little different than your traditional stars. They were just like us mere moments ago– regular people sitting in their regular bedrooms beside their regular closets. The thought can be a little inspiring.

We say Samsung made a wise move by hiring Laina to sell its SSD840 drive, thereby demonstrating its sense of humor and its awareness of the fact that memes=marketing gold. Remember that McKayla Maroney had a meme–and she was a world-class athlete who won a gold medal at the summer Olympics.

Laina is just another one of your friend’s funny sisters.

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While SNL did several skits skewering the ads (including fake commercials hawking everything from Taco Bell to canine condoms), we think Killam’s first run, a direct hit at the Chanel spot, was his best. By the end of the video, Killam’s pontificating monologue has devolved into nonsensical drivel that’s just mildly more insufferable than the original.

At least everyone seems to agree that these spots shouldn’t be winning any awards this season (unless Ad Week does its own version of the Razzies):

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The alleged offense in this latest, mildest Phelps controversy concerns the act of making money before mommy Olympia says its OK. Olympics participants are legally forbidden from appearing in ads or other promotional events with any non-Olympic entities during a one-month period from July 18 to August 15. The punishment for related violations is somewhat severe: offending athletes may be required to relinquish their medals altogether. The games would almost definitely turn into an advertising orgy if this restriction weren’t in place, but how does it apply to Phelps?

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That’s right, Priceline knows that America has a strangely loyal relationship with Shatner. The fact that his character will return as spokesman after literally dying in a fiery crash earlier this year brings us a level of joy we haven’t felt since the return of the McRib. PR experts, of course, want to capture the secret behind America’s love for Shatner so they can replicate it, package it and profit from it over and over again.

But we’re hard-pressed to define or explain our nation’s collective affinity for a man who has taken us to the final frontier and back for more than 40 years. continued…

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Wahlberg’s primary role will be to serve as the public face of MARKED™, a new line of “performance nutrition products” supposedly developed by “leading GNC scientists and wellness experts” in order to meet Mark’s own exacting standards for physical performance.

The Oscar-winning star of films like “The Fighter,” “Boogie Nights” and the Reese Witherspoon showcase “Fear” guarantees fans and fitness buffs that his line of multi-vitamins, powders, protein bars and other supplements will provide a needed edge to both dedicated athletes and weekend warriors who aspire to achieve their sky-high fitness goals.

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We’ve all heard that the trick to life is showing up, but there is much to be said for hanging around too. Just ask Betty White, 90, who has enjoyed a well-deserved resurgence in popularity these past several years. From hosting Saturday Night Live to a run in popular Snickers commercials that aired during the 2010 Super Bowl, Ms. White is parlaying her wit, longevity, and self-deprecating sense of humor into a lucrative career as a spokeswoman.

Tide Vivid White and Bright products has enlisted Ms. White in a slew of humorous commercials that leverage not only her accessible humor but the serendipity of her last name. This article in The New York Times elaborates, “Susan Young, a creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi, said that while Ms. White’s last name was a happy coincidence, the reason she was cast is that her personality represented what Tide Vivid was trying to cultivate.”

In an era when celebrities and other real-life spokespeople appear intractably prone to controversy and poor decisions, Ms. White’s grandmotherly appeal and renegade personality render her almost bulletproof to anything life can throw at her. After all, Ms. White has been there and done that. For Tide, a brand that deals with life’s messes, well, how could it go wrong with Ms. White? That’s savvy PR.

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The latest Siri ads starring John Malkovich have debuted, and they’re a departure from the previous Zooey Deschanel/Samuel L. Jackson clips. Actually, all three are pretty different from one another.

Here, Malkovich is doing his Malkovichian thing, giving Siri the word “life” to respond to and laughing at one of the phone’s non-jokes. As The Huffington Post notes, the previous ads have generated “scorn and derision” as well as a lot of talk. It’s likely the new ones will as well.

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Primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall is serving as the spokesperson for Disneynature’s new film Chimpanzee, which follows the story of Oscar and his chimp family in the African forest.

Goodall appeared on the red carpet for the movie’s premiere in Orlando on Friday, and has been making the rounds with the media, including a stop at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Clip after the jump.

Profits from the movie’s opening week will go to the Jane Goodall Institute. Other Disneynature films include Earth and Oceans. Each of the film’s has been accompanied by a charitable donation. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that The Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund has made a total of $20 million in donations. Seriously, how can you resist that little face?

The movie opens this Friday, which is just before Earth Day on Sunday, April 22.

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