Prior to the Hugh Laurie advert there had been a series of adverts gracing Australian TV screens by the ANZ bank. Here is one example:
These adverts clearly are using Patrick Jane - Simon Barker's character in The Mentalist - to sell their product. I would suggest they are seeking to have the superior logic which he seems to exude (from the tiny amount of this show I have actually seen) be connected to those who are clever enough to bank with ANZ.
Maybe what it was that really piqued my interest with the Hugh Laurie advert was that it wasn't such an intentional statement that Greg House is selling this product. It's titled as Hugh Laurie, and ok, the accent is an English one (all be it with that I've lived in America too long tinge). Yet, having watched Hugh Laurie in a number of different roles, I can't shake that in this advert he appears remarkably like the arrogant, flamboyant, unattached and not so stable Dr House. It feels like a very blurred and funny sense of reality where a fictional character Dr Hugh Greg Laurie House is selling me face cream....
I think it is the blatant use of the fictional, which occurs in both these adverts, to sell me something in the real world, that makes me wonder if we're stepping over a line we've all known was there, but now seems so obvious that it doesn't even matter anymore. In the words of mewithoutYou: It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All a Dream! It's Alright
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