The good ole male CEO ego (Kozlowski, you’ll be bunking with Lay). With scores of
Yes Men telling them they have great voices and great faces, they sometimes embarrassingly end up in their own TV commercials. Brand Image-wise, this is almost always a flatout idiotic move.
EXHIBIT A: eHarmony’s Neil Clark Warren. Already laughed at
here. I’d just like to add that hearing his voice immediately sets off the urge in me to fuck a church organist and dump her. That can’t be a good thing, right?
EXHIBIT B: Disarmingly smarmy Men’s Wearhouse CEO George Zimmer uses a scripted, fatiguing sense of humor to sell suits to mooks who couldn’t dress a paper cut. Just another Boring Ass in love with his own voice.
EXHIBIT C: Lee Iacocca (former CEO) for Chrysler. Yeah, smart move. Way to reel in that desirable 70–death driving demo.
Ahh, but then there was Greek immigrant, New Yorker, and
Absolute Fucking Total Genius Tommy Carvel. Over the years, he smartly solicited grade school children, as opposed to ad agencies, to work on his TV spots. And hearing him say “Thinny-Thin” or “Cookie Puss” in that wonderfully semi-incoherent rasp transfixed a nation. Carvel built an empire from nothing. He passed away in his sleep in 1990, and took with him a legacy as the first and last great company spokesperson.