Friday, September 15, 2006
Say It Isn't So, Audrey!
I haven't been watching much TV, but one of the few times I did this past week I saw the new Gap ad featuring Audrey Hepburn dancing to AC/DC shilling black pants. Now, I love Audrey Hepburn, including the movie that the clip is from (Funny Face), and I love AC/DC. In fact, Back in Black is one of the first songs I learned to play on guitar. And in general, I don't mind the Gap. But put all three of those together, and I think it's just bad bad bad!
I hate using dead celebrities to sell products after the fact in general. The Fred Astaire "Hoover" commercial was absolutely terrible. I think if a celebrity had wanted to schill for products to make extra money, they would have when they were alive. Once they're dead, I think it's horrible to try and make more money from them, even if (as in this case with Hepburn) some of the proceeds are going to charity. The only exception is a situation where the celebrity already had a clear relationship with the product. If Michael Jordan were to pass away and Nike made a commercial featuring old clips of him, I don't think anyone would mind because Jordan practically put Nike on the map with his Air Jordan shoes. A more real example would be the Steve McQueen Mustang ads, which were a natural extension from the movie Bullitt and from Steve McQueen's general relationship with the car. But Hepburn never endorsed Gap in her career, and never schilled for any products in general. Given her relationship to Givenchy, it's really hard to say that the image that the Gap portrays is in keeping at all with her own spirit.
The use of AC/DC with the clip is also something that bothers me. The dance clip comes from a sequence in Funny Face where Hepburn's character is showing her individualistic side as a constrast to Fred Astaire's very conservative and corporate nature. She's dancing in a jazz club in Paris that's playing very avante-garde-ish music. Putting that against the very un-avante-garde AC/DC is a bit jarring. I love the song by itself, but not when you put the two together. I think if you had no idea who Audrey Hepburn was or where that dance sequence came from, you'd think it was fine ... but then again, why would you use a clip of Audrey Hepburn if you weren't counting on people recognizing Audrey Hepburn?
It feels like another example of a conglomerate trying to "hip-ify" something classic and cram it into a corporate marketing image. That's the really offensive part. The ad itself is actually kind of cool, and if she wasn't schilling for some crappy product it would probably be an interesting juxtaposition of two contradictory ideas, a "mash-up" if you will. But given that it's Audrey Hepburn and the context of the dance moves, it just feels cheap and tawdry.
I hate using dead celebrities to sell products after the fact in general. The Fred Astaire "Hoover" commercial was absolutely terrible. I think if a celebrity had wanted to schill for products to make extra money, they would have when they were alive. Once they're dead, I think it's horrible to try and make more money from them, even if (as in this case with Hepburn) some of the proceeds are going to charity. The only exception is a situation where the celebrity already had a clear relationship with the product. If Michael Jordan were to pass away and Nike made a commercial featuring old clips of him, I don't think anyone would mind because Jordan practically put Nike on the map with his Air Jordan shoes. A more real example would be the Steve McQueen Mustang ads, which were a natural extension from the movie Bullitt and from Steve McQueen's general relationship with the car. But Hepburn never endorsed Gap in her career, and never schilled for any products in general. Given her relationship to Givenchy, it's really hard to say that the image that the Gap portrays is in keeping at all with her own spirit.
The use of AC/DC with the clip is also something that bothers me. The dance clip comes from a sequence in Funny Face where Hepburn's character is showing her individualistic side as a constrast to Fred Astaire's very conservative and corporate nature. She's dancing in a jazz club in Paris that's playing very avante-garde-ish music. Putting that against the very un-avante-garde AC/DC is a bit jarring. I love the song by itself, but not when you put the two together. I think if you had no idea who Audrey Hepburn was or where that dance sequence came from, you'd think it was fine ... but then again, why would you use a clip of Audrey Hepburn if you weren't counting on people recognizing Audrey Hepburn?
It feels like another example of a conglomerate trying to "hip-ify" something classic and cram it into a corporate marketing image. That's the really offensive part. The ad itself is actually kind of cool, and if she wasn't schilling for some crappy product it would probably be an interesting juxtaposition of two contradictory ideas, a "mash-up" if you will. But given that it's Audrey Hepburn and the context of the dance moves, it just feels cheap and tawdry.
# posted by Chris @ 2:03 PM 
