On Semi-Pro's Marketing
This entry was posted on 2/28/2008 6:27 AM and is filed under Amusements,Musings.
A full review of the film will follow later today, but Will Ferrell's
Semi-Pro is certainly
blazing more new paths with its ancillary marketing schemes. First there's Ferrell's in-character, costarring role with Heidi Klum in the recent, annual
Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition (below).
Then, in moderate rotation, and I guess greatly defraying the cost of ad buys, are
a series of television commercials for Old Spice deodorant in which Ferrell — again in character, as affably idiotic owner-coach-player hoops maven Jackie Moon — ad-libs about sweat, exercise and "herniated colons," and how Old Spice is the all-important cure-all. They're funny (despite my girlfriend's insistence to the contrary) and
in keeping with the arbitrary tone of the movie, though still a little bit diminishing. It smacks of all the cross-promotional stuff done for
Talladega Nights, though a bit less artfully integrated, since part of the "joke" there was in spoofing the commercialization of racing, and its many sponsors.
