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Ask, and ye shall receive.
Prompted by Debbie’s query about the identity of the actors in that surreal-goofy Milky Way “whatev/buffet of manliness/panda bear” TV commercial, I put the burning question to Stuart Elliott, the New York Times’ chief advertising reporter.
My faith was rewarded, as Elliott provided the answer today in the Q&A section of his weekly In Advertising email newsletter. Since the newsletter isn’t archived online, I’ll reproduce the response here, with a few strategic hyperlinks thrown in:
Q: [Reader] On behalf of a curious commenter on my blog (populationstatistic.com), I put this question to you. Who are the actors in the oddball Milky Way commercial featuring a dejected loser named Neil and his come-to-life candy-bar girlfriend? I find it funny how many people — mostly kids, as far as I can tell — are digging on this goofy ad.
A: [Stuart Elliott] The commercial for Milky Way, sold by the Masterfoods USA division of Mars, is created by BBDO Worldwide in New York, part of the Omnicom Group. Roy Elvove, a spokesman for BBDO New York, identifies the talent as D. Neil Mark (the guy) and Serinda Swan (the girl in the candy bar).
Mr. Elvove passes on this information about Mr. Mark from Chris McMurtrey, the copywriter on the commercial: “The two directors, the Perlorian brothers, knew this was the right guy for the job the second he walked in because he could evoke sympathy without being a total loser.”
As for Ms. Swan, Mr. McMurtrey says, she “auditioned better than anyone else,” adding that some viewers may recognize her as the cover model for the 2006 “Swimsuit Sirens” calendar.
I dunno about that “without being a total loser” assessment. But I guess there is a shred of empathy in the spot for Neil (cute how they used his real name as the commercial character’s name; I believe that’s fairly standard practice).
So there you have it. Somehow, given this blog’s track record with model-icious babes, I’m thinking the links for Swan (which lead to some smokin’ photos) are going to get a ton more action than the ones for Mark…
Hey man, that’s not cool. Mr. Mark is an excellent comedic actor, although I suppose only people here in Canada would know that. He was on a tv show up here called Rockpoint PD and he was in my opinion the best part of the show. I e-mailed him and he found time to e-mail me back and he seems like an awesome guy.
Comment by Kyle — 06/16/2006 @ 1:16 AM
I loved it from the very first time I saw it!! To this day my girlfriend and I still quote it like anything else you would from Saturday Night live! Some commercials you watch and think to yourself,”I could do better than that?!?!”. Then something like this comes along and you really appreciate it!
Comment by Roman — 02/01/2008 @ 4:01 PM