I hesitate to call Biz Markie a celebrity –since he only had one ‘hit’ song twenty-three years ago (though he gets bonus points for having a prototypical 80’s video with bad lip-syncing) — but his commercials are a perfect example of what I like to call a Fallen Celebrity Commercials.
First, watch the commercial, then we’ll break it down.
Awful, right? Here’s the elements I look for when when classifying this genre of commercial:
- A product that only has a niche target audience — Check. I don’t know who needs this service, but anyone that stupid deserves to pay for this.
- A “celebrity” with decent name-recognition — Check. If you don’t know his name, you’ll know his song at the end.
- Low-budget commercial with a ridiculous premise and terrible production values (often exhibits poorly re-dubbed segments) — Check. Looks like something a high school media department would whip up in an afternoon.
- A retooled catch-phrase for which the person is best known — Check. The only line, of the only song he’s known for, lyric changed to name-drop the service.
We’ve definitely got a Fallen Celebrity Commercial on our hands! It also appears that he’s stoned out of his damn mind, so who knows how may times they had to re-record this 30 second spot. He can’t be making more than 10 grand for this, can he?
