- Easy, breezy, beautiful commercial girls.
Remember how shocked people were when Bob Dylan showed up in a Victoria’s Secret commercial? That was awkwardly weird, but not as gross as one I heard this week: Fine Young Cannibals’ song “She Drives Me Crazy,” on a cough syrup commercial, where sick people hack up flem on command during the choruses.
No one’s blaming the old guys for endorsing a few products to keep the limo fuelled, but as Slate pointed out, it’s always a little different when it’s indie sweethearts like Zooey Deschanel and Ellen Page. Read their analysis here, and watch the commercial here:
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2009.
Aside from the lack of taste on behalf our indie sweethearts, the Cisco commercial is just plain sucks. Ellen Page comes across awkward, and I don’t understand why I need to buy technology from her. At least Zooey was thoroughly charming in her mini-sell-out.
Whatever. People like money. People like Ellen Page. It fits.
I’m not one of those people who defends their local princess to the death (I was quite furious with her when she dropped out of Drag Me To Hell), but I love these ads, they’re so overt that it doesn’t matter. That plus, it showcases Ellen’s comedic timing very nicely!
How long do you figure it will take before Ellen gets a rocking agent like Amanda Bynes got? You see Amanda on the cover of Cosmo this month? Damn, she got ugly fast.
love both Cisco and Ellen, but her tech-ignorance doesn’t exactly endorse the product does it??
Cisco has contributed heavily to limiting freedoms in China. That doesn’t really sound like Ellen Page’s ball of wax. Musta been a pretty good payday.
Hey YoMama…”Cisco has contributed heavily to limiting freedoms in China. “…
Care to back that up with some facts? pffffft
Google Cisco, censorship, China. It’s all there. Here’s one to get you started:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte…
And oh yeah, I forgot. “Pffffft” right back atcha.
Oooooh. A newspaper article that’s two years old. And guess what…no charges were ever levied because there’s nothing there. The Chinese buy the same off the shelf gear as Canadians do. How they use it can’t really be controlled can it! Like blaming an auto manufacturer for drunk drivers. Nothing substantiated there or in any other article I’ve ever read on the subject. Pure conjecture.
As someone who lives south of the border and tends to visit Halifax about every other year, it took me a few views of the three commericals to realize it took place in NS. While Page does not seem an obvious spokesperson for Cisco, all three commercials have scenarios that make Page confused and bemused—and Page does confused and bemused very well. I would guess Page being in these spots has something to do with her being a Nova Scotian and the commercials taking place in NS. I was just wondering what made Ciso come up the the NS connection?
What’s wrong with people making money? Oh, right, that makes you a “sell out”. Right, and you all would be above taking a fat cheque for a days work. Hypocrites.
The comments here are more interesting and insightful than the original article. Who’d have guessed. 😉
I have no idea what is being sold and these commercials make me want to do bad things.
Personally I like the commercials. They are designed to increase awareness of video conferencing technology which is increasingly becoming mainstream. Of course millions of us are doing it on Skype already, but the kind of conferencing in the commercials is much higher resolution, which requires huge band width and puts large demands on the internet. As people start doing this more and more, telecom companies will have to buy more Cisco products to keep upgrading their networks to keep up with the traffic. You may not understand what the commercial is about, but the advertisers know what they are doing and you are once again being manipulated to do what they want! On the plus side, increasing connectivity like this may someday help build world peace. Okay, that’s a bit too wishful.
I love these commercials. I never saw Juno, but Ellen is so charming and sweet in these commercials. The locals should be proud of her. Zero attitude and no ego, just sweetness and very realistic innocence and amusement on her part. She is an ACTRESS after all. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to make some huge bucks off of a technology giant? I simply don’t put politics into the commercials. Ellen is pretty HOT, by the way. I love her “accent” too. Especially the way she says “…is that my CAR?” Good for her!
Between Ellen and the Cisco Voice…wow…I could watch nothing but commercials…she’s come quite far from Hard Candy….
Personally speaking, I think Ellen Stone is a charming spokesperson for Cisco– but every time she goes off THAT script, she seems to me to be far less than impressive– sorry, Ellen. [Yes, I have seen her several times, on SNL and other programs. ] Perhaps she’s trying too hard. I hope that’s the case; and if that’s what she is up to, good luck, she does need it.