Names & Faces: Miller Lite Campaign For Regular Guys Showcases Chuck Liddell
ADWEEK’s Tim Nudd reported Miller Lite's new ads from Saatchi & Saatchi feature former UFC fighter Chuck Liddell, musician Questlove and actor Ken Jeong. For the agency, the celebrity “approach is a way to ramp up the novelty and energy level of its 'Miller Time' campaign." Instead of “pricey A-listers, the agency wanted celebrities who seemed more like everyday guys, ones the young male viewer could see himself hanging out with.” Liddell “gets his way merely by glancing at potential adversaries.” Liddell as depicted in his ad “really did play with dolphins at a zoo” (ADWEEK.com, 3/18). Other Miller Lite ads in the campaign include "commercials in Spanish targeted toward Hispanics and others promoting responsible drinking, which feature NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski" (MILWAUKEE BUSINESS JOURNAL, 3/15 issue).
ROLE PLAYER: The MOTLEY FOOL’s Arturo Cuevas reported Lakers G Kobe Bryant is “cast only as a co-star with barely three seconds exposure in a video commercial” for Nike’s recent ad titled “Give Me The Ball.” The ad stars “an unknown sandlot player trying to win China’s young consumers” and is part of Nike’s marketing campaign “to assert leadership in China.” The “apparent rationale” of the ad is to “latch on the desire of the youth in the potent emerging city markets of China to be identified as having the individuality uniquely their own.” Bryant’s image “thus comes only as a second-stringer.” It is “this marketing nuance that Adidas appears to have missed as it still has been relying largely on local celebrity endorsers to promote its products in China” (FOOL.com, 3/18).
HIS AIRISM: WOMEN'S WEAR DAILY's Julia Neel reported Novak Djokovic “will appear in his first campaign for Uniqlo since being named brand ambassador” in May ‘12. He will “front the campaign” for Airism, an underwear line “made from a high-tech fabric that is being positioned as the summer equivalent to the brand’s Heat Tech range.” Djokovic “wears Uniqlo Airism under his kit” on court. The underwear “comes in collections for women and children too.” The campaign “breaks in Japan” tomorrow and will “appear globally later in the spring in both outdoor and print media” (WWD.com, 3/15).
THE HEIGHT OF FASHION: WSJ Magazine's Adrienne Gaffney reported Knicks F Carmelo Anthony, who appears on the cover of the April issue, has “become more and more attuned to matters of style, attending fashion shows and advocating for out-of-the-box designers like Simon Spurr and Rag & Bone.” Anthony's “leap to a glossy magazine cover was helped along by Khalilah Williams-Webb, his personal stylist, who now considers finding designer looks for a 6-foot-8-inch frame second nature.” Williams-Webb said, “I love fashion shoots, because it gives us a chance to express editorially what we can’t on a daily basis. It shakes things up a bit” (WSJ Magazine, 4/'13issue).
