Stanley Tucci’s puntastic San Pellegrino deal heralds a fizzy future for celebrity endorsements
Any movie star can put their face to a product. It’s the easiest thing in the world to do; you have a recognisable face, and people want to give you money for putting that face next to something they’re trying to sell. However, very few celebrities are good at endorsing products that fit with their own personal brand.
Do you think that Kevin Bacon is really that interested in mobile data coverage? Of course not. And nobody would assume that George Clooney – handsome billionaire actor George Clooney – spends his whole day making coffee from little plastic pods. So when true synergy reveals itself, when a celebrity finally uncovers that one brand that fits so neatly with their persona that the two become indistinguishable, we have to applaud.
I’m telling you this because Stanley Tucci has just announced a “multi-year collaboration” with San Pellegrino. Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that the most perfect thing you’ve ever heard? Tucci, the actor, producer and impeccably dressed cookery and cocktails lockdown heart-throb, is now for ever joined at the hip with a company selling expensive water.
The two mesh so well, don’t they? Try to imagine Tucci in a restaurant asking for a jug of tap water. You can’t, can you? Even if you close your eyes and strain as hard as you can, you cannot summon the mental image of pristine man about town Stanley Tucci asking a waiter to give him something for free. No, Tucci wants to pay for his water. He wants to pay over the odds for his water. He wants to pay over the odds for a water that isn’t as nice as flat water, but carries slightly more prestige. This is who Stanley Tucci is, and everybody knows it.
Sure, the collaboration will involve a television advertising campaign, probably where Tucci
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