Hitch Your Wagon to a Star Trivia Quiz

Answer: Orson Welles

One of the Hollywood greats of the mid-twentieth century, Orson Welles was highly-celebrated and highly-rewarded for his works in front of and behind the camera. In the 1970s, late into his career, Welles started appearing in television advertisements, a decision made due to the fact that regular work dried up, a consequence of his notoriety for being quite difficult to work with. Notably, Welles was the face of Paul Masson Vineyards in a series of ads in which, since their airing, it was discovered that he was drunk for much of filming.

Perhaps his most infamous ad was for Findus Frozen Peas for which a blooper reel was put into circulation shortly after it was filmed in the 1970s. During the recording, Welles was belligerent towards the crew, often because he felt the script was poorly-written and beneath his capabilities. The recording ended with Welles leaving, exclaiming "This isn't worth it, no money is worth it!" It's been parodied heavily since.

Answer: Activia

Danone, the creators of Activia yogurt, pushed the snack as a probiotic 'health' food with their branding in 2010, developing an ad campaign with Jamie Lee Curtis as the face. Curtis never really claimed, since, to have an affinity for the yogurt, but she was affiliated with the brand well past her time in said ads, even being parodied on "Saturday Night Live". In fact, Curtis noted that she took ad campaigns like these in order to film close to home, even during her busier years, allowing her to be closer to her kids.

Activia ended up coming under fire for this very ad campaign though-- not due to Curtis' involvement, fortunately-- because of their claim that their product was "scientifically proven" to improve digestion (ie. reduce constipation) as a probiotic. Scientists proved, for the courts, that this was ultimately false advertising.

Answer: Kendall Jenner

Although all of the options here have been attached to Pepsi campaigns over the decades, the Kendall Jenner one was a lot more uncomfortable than the others to watch. Set in a busy city, it features Jenner as she and others join what appears to be a peace march through the streets. The march reaches a line of police, ready to block the protesters, but Jenner walks up to one of the officers and presents them with a can of Pepsi which, as it seems, solves world peace? Maybe?

Both Jenner and Pepsi were heavily criticized for the ad with the latter seeing a significant drop in sales numbers after its release (in 2017). Critics noted that the ad itself was tone-deaf, especially in light of the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests and the general ACAB sentiment in North America at the time, and it felt as though the creators were co-opting the important (and ongoing) social movement to sell soda. Obviously, they were, but it sounds worse when it's said out loud.

Jenner's career barely floundered despite. A member of the Kardashian family, it seemed she was afforded a fair bit of cushion from the drama.

Answer: George Foreman Grill

In one of the most successful branding deals that may come to mind, the electric grill pushed by George Foreman was a notable product deal because of how much sway he really had in selling an effective appliance. Originally created as a product to fill and cook fajitas and tacos, it was reworked and rebranded in 1994 to become 'The Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine', but a series of popular infomercials effectively caused it to be rebranded once again into the George Foreman Grill, what would become its household name.

And it was in a lot of households. With Foreman's name on the grill and the backing on TV, he would end up being on kitchen countertops in more than one hundred million households.

As for the other answers, you may be surprised that the Evander Holyfield Real Deal Grill exists. Holyfield starred in a 2007 infomercial for this one, though it was nowhere near as popular. In Asian markets, Jackie Chan put his face and name to the grill-- the same grill as the George Foreman model-- and was successful there as well. A good product is a good product.

Answer: Zelda

Born in 1989, Zelda Williams was one of Robin's three children (one of two with his wife of two decades, Marsha Garces Williams) and the one of the three who also made her way into the entertainment industry as an actor and a director (her debut being the Diablo Cody-penned "Lisa Frankenstein"). Robin admitted that he named her after the damsel-in-distress from the popular Nintendo game series "The Legend of Zelda" of which he was a fan in the 1980s.

The father-daughter duo was the perfect pair to bring in for a series of ads in the early 2010s; Nintendo featured the two playing the newly-released "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D", a remake of the classic game for the 3DS handheld system.

Answer: Chanel No. 5

Chanel No. 5 was introduced in the 1920s and quickly rose to the status of being a popular and premier fragrance, and it's due largely to effective marketing, with Coco Chanel having planned events and campaigns for the perfume since its launch. Since then, there've been a number of ambassadors for the brand, many of whom have been used to create elaborate advertisements, often in the form of short films, to push the product and its image of luxe excellence.

The most noteworthy of these ads came from director Baz Luhrmann, who featured Nicole Kidman as the star of a two-minute-long short film called "No. 5 the Film", which was meant to allude to a larger film about the fragrance and which ran during coming attractions segments in movie theatres. It was extremely expensive to produce, but it was also very popular, with Luhrmann being called in to make another film with Gisele Bündchen in 2014. Luca Guadagnino would make another in 2024 with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.

Kidman herself remained popular as a movie star throughout all of this, coming off her Best Actress Oscar win for "The Hours" in the same year. She was effectively paid $12M USD for every minute of the ad's contents.

Answer: I'm Lovin' It

Produced by The Neptunes, who also helped Justin Timberlake create his first solo album, "Justified", "I'm Lovin' It" was originally created for McDonald's but blew up into a larger song that would get released on Timberlake's first live album, "Live in London", in 2003. That Timberlake sang the song in the first place was a bit of a fun fact for non-fans; the jingle was used internationally, and became synonymous with the brand without Timberlake really appearing in ads at all.

Although Timberlake stated that he regretted contributing the creation of the jingle (perhaps because "Supersize Me" would release the following year), "I'm Lovin' It" was a massively-successful and long-running campaign, so much so that it would leverage other celebrity endorsers over time who would actually appear in the commercials to give the trademark "ba-da-ba-ba-ba".

Answer: Ricardo Montalbán

Corinthian leather doesn't really exist or, at least, it's not something that existed before the item was ideated by ad executives in the 1970s. Used to describe the seat upholstery in luxury Chryslers in the United States, it would end up being used by Ricardo Montalbán in a TV advert for the 1975 Chrysler Cordoba and become, to a degree, associated with him. Montalbán would even have a line referencing the material when he appeared, in a wheelchair, in "Spy Kids 3-D" (2003).

Ricardo Montalbán, who acted in films and TV starting in the early 1940s, would rise in fame in both his home country of Mexico and in the United States for decades, eventually becoming the celebrity spokesman for Chrysler vehicles for the better part of fifteen years. Notably, Montalbán drove a custom 1977 Cordoba. Corinthian leather remains.... erm... not real.

Answer: ThighMaster

Suzanne Somers, who was one of the stars of "Three's Company" in the 1970s and 1980s and "Step By Step" in the 1990s, joined the hall of fame of stars of the era attaching themselves to health and exercise aids by becoming the spokeswoman for the ThighMaster, a device designed to be placed between the legs and squeeze, providing resistance to strengthen the inner thighs. The tactic worked; the ThighMaster as a classic 'as seen on TV' product that sold very successfully in the 1990s.

Somers would remain popular as a TV star through the 1990s, but would fade in and out of substantial stardom in the 2000s, partly due to her ongoing breast cancer and skin cancer treatments. Outspoken in her political views in later years, especially with regards to alternative medical treatments and her critiques of water fluorination, Somers would end up passing away in 2023 due to a return of her earlier breast cancer.

Answer: Air Jordan

Michael Jordan was going to be a star, and as soon as he became a first-round draft pick, joining the Chicago Bulls in 1984, he was approached by multiple sportswear brands to formulate a strategy. He would ultimately end up going with Nike, and together they would create the Air Jordan brand, one that would make Jordan very rich, very fast, in a marketing deal that would transcend the initial six-year plan they created together.

Jordan would ultimately be a star on and off the court for his nearly-twenty-year career in the NBA while the Air Jordan brand would persist beyond that, becoming its own major label (still under Nike). The logo, a silhouette of Michael Jordan making a leaping dunk, is internationally-recognized, not unlike the Nike swoosh on every pair of Jordans.

The 2023 Ben Affleck/Matt Damon film "Air", about Sonny Vaccaro and Phil Knight's development of the brand, was interestingly about Michael Jordan, but explicitly didn't feature him.