Commercials That Created Stars
Product promotion made some average Joes overnight celebrities.
Nov. 15, 2008 — -- For 30 seconds at a time, television commercials enter our rooms with one shot at making a lasting impression.
Wendy's "Where's the beef?" ad made audiences laugh, while the 1971 pollution prevention public service announcement struck an emotional chord with its portrayal of a Native American crying.
Many commercials seem destined only to annoy viewers, but every once and awhile, one defies short attention spans and our penchant for channel flipping to enter the cultural zeitgeist. They can even create a few stars.
In the late 90s, Ben Curtis, also known as the "Dell Dude," beamed into living rooms across America in a string of television ads for the computer maker, helping bolster Dell's $4.8 billion consumer sector and making the phrase "Dude, you're getting a Dell!" a part of the cultural lexicon. The commercials brought him instant success.
"For the first four or five years after the commercials, I couldn't go anywhere in America, even in Japan and Amsterdam, anywhere on the streets, in hats and sunglasses. It didn't matter. I could not finish a conversation with anyone without hearing 'Dude, where's my computer?'" Curtis told "Good Morning America."
Pitch personalities like Curtis are a rarity in a fast-paced industry that has a hard time pinpointing the next big thing. Jerry Della Femina, a New York-based advertising executive, said that "out of maybe 50 people you cast, there's one person that so stands out, that you automatically say, that's the person we want. And it always works."
Curtis, a prime example of a pitch person with the right voice, had a five-year run with Dell. The partnership could have continued, but a 2003 arrest for possession of marijuana sidelined the actor, and Dell severed ties with Curtis.
"I made a very very bad decision," Curtis said. "I paid for it, but I learned a lot from it. I think that was important."
Today, Curtis is scripting a one-man show, hoping to use his famous past to recharge his career. The show pokes fun at the hysteria surrounding his appeal as a pitch person, alludes to his Tennessee upbringing as a minister's son, and revisits what it was like living in New York City after September 11, 2001.
