Have you ever wondered what NBA superstar James Harden’s beard has to say? Well, a new commercial by Trolli answers that question.
The first spot featuring the beard is an uninspired one which barely features Harden, where his beard proclaims he’s his own man.The spot has a particularly grating voice actor speaking as the beard. It’s all supposed to be on the nose, as Harden’s rival sponsorship is mentioned with censorship and the beard is asked how much he took from the Trolli deal, but it doesn’t work. It’s annoying.
“Trolli’s unique. I’m unique. We both like to push the envelope and be creative,” says Harden in a statement announcing the news. “That’s why we work well together.”
The second spot is trying to be weird to be funny, but isn’t. In the spot we learn James Harden has heads within his heads, who promote the Trolli brand - with the last one playing a guitar solo. It’s an attempt to do anti-humor and one that isn’t successful.
The spots are supposed to celebrate uniqueness according to Ferrara’s Candy’s who made Trolli.
“We are about celebrating the uniqueness in all of us. We are a little offbeat. We are fun,” says Jill Manchester, head of brand strategy at Ferrara told Forbes. “James embodies the energy and essence of Trolli.”
I appreciate the effort to branch out and try something different, but doing something this far out has to have an inspired idea behind it, otherwise, it’s unwatchable. Athlete ads, like Blake Griffin’s KIA spots, should be rewatchable, this one left my memory as soon as the video stopped.
[Forbes]
