On the Guitar Hero Commercial

I recently wrote about celebrity endorsements, acknowledging the infestation of celebrity hysteria not only among the tabloid-addict, consuming pubic, but also on the mix-masters of the advertising market themselves. While the advertising industry's gone gah-gah over the celebrity endorsement, they've shown they'll go to great financial extents in reeling in celebrities so much that the creativity and overall integrity of the market is being threatened. In obtaining the celebrity face, advertisers are often caught in a star-struck vortex while handling celebrity endorsements, making foolhardy decisions in their quest for the biggest name in the business instead of the right one for the product at hand. Following the first "Guitar Hero: World Tour" commercial headed by a bevy of jiving all-star celebrities, an emulation of Tom Cruise's iconic stunt in Risky Business, they're already out with it's sister follow-up video advertisement, featuring who??? Heidi Klum????

Do these guys really expect me to think that Project Runway host and renown supermodel Heidi Klum sits around all day playing Guitar Hero like the rest of the thirteen-year old male population? While Guitar Hero might have succeeded at scoring a celebrity phenomenon as its figure head, but it's effective at nothing but stimulating male hard-ons. Pulling the oldest trick of the book---sex sells--might turn on the masculine sex drive, but if anything might turn off consumers. Why would teenage boys, wound up in the midst of hormone frenzy, while making every attempt to flex their muscles and flaunt their stature as full grown man, want to buy the same cootees-infested product a girl plays with. Hell, if he's going to go out and buy Heidi Klum's favorite toy, he might as well go out and get a manicure while he's at it--right?(thirteen year old boy thinking here)

This ad might succeed in tantalizing the public gaze for its 30 second duration(oh yeah and in between the satin sheets of sweet dreams), but its not to make an everlasting imprint on "Guitar Hero" sales. Although the first commercial had athletes instead of a more appropriate choice in using badass rockstars like Bon Jovi or Steven Tyler, it was a staggeringly clever commercial taking full advantage of a moment in the history of popular culture while spicing it up with modern embellishment, giving it the perfect tinge of a classic-modern masterpiece in the field of marketing(and honestly who's more cool right now than Michael Phelps, A-Rod, Kobe Bryant, and Tony Hawke?) More entranced by the celebrity face than the ingenious idea or strategically-devised celebrity use, displays like this "Guitar Hero" strip tease, might attract America's hungry gaze, but it won't seduce consumers enough to have any bearing on their wallet. I think Pop Therapy captured the overall public reaction to the ad saying, "It doesn’t make me want to buy the game, but it does make me wish I were that Guitar."