I have always thought, without any actual corroborating evidence to support my gut feeling on the subject, that Peyton Manning is a lot like Hansel from Zoolander. Stick with me on this one.
The guy is in a lot of commercials. A lot of commercials. A lot. Really, a lot.
I can see him turning up to the set, meeting the agency people and sitting to talk to the client who is, of course, over the moon excited that they are actually talking to Peyton Manning. Not wanting to be “those people” who talk to him about what he is thinking during a two-minute drill, they ask him how he likes acting.
And he says something, with all the genuine feeling that he can muster, like, “I love acting, and I care desperately about what I do. Do I know what product I’m selling? No. Do I know what I am doing today? No. But I’m here. And I am going to give it my best shot.”
And he means it.
That said, I like Peyton Manning. I think that he is a down to earth kind of guy who is really funny given the right sort of script that plays off of his ability to play light self-deprecation for a laugh…which means that, though he may be a little bit played out, it kind of doesn’t matter. He is strangely able to move past the fact that he is in every commercial ever because he is pretty likeable. And good at being in advertising.
Even online advertising, like the current Mastercard work from MRM New York.
It’s an old concept, the personalized video from a famous person, with a famous person who is an advertising hooker, and yet it doesn’t fall on its face.
Peyton Manning comes off just like he always does…as a salt of the earth guy who is accidentally famous that you wouldn’t mind having a beer with. And the video is cut just right so it’s hard to tell at first that it’s one of those personalized videos and not actually cut that way.
I don’t really know what it is trying to sell, but when do you in a Peyton Manning ad?
Peyton Manning ads are about one thing: Peyton Manning. Who is pretty funny.
