Advertising Imitates Hollywood Imitates Advertising

Thanks to Steve over at AdRants, I’ve been alerted to Eva Longoria’s upcoming role as an ad exec at a multicultural agency in San Antonio (Texas).

I’ve passed the article around our multicultural ad agency office, here, and we all think it’s very interesting.

You see, up until this past January when my agency partner and I split our group and our accounts, I had worked on, and been the CD of, the Pepsi account for several years (even prior to being teamed with Roberto as my Art Director).

Roberto and I brought Eva into the Pepsi fold when we shot a spot called “New Neighbor” in 2004. (This was before big-hair Eva appeared in the BBDO “Pepsi Trucks Are Cool” spot.)

And now she’s playing one of us. Fantastic.

I told Steve maybe they’d shoot a scene that pans over her shoulder while she’s surfing AdRants. She seems to possess qualities he admires (namely, two X chromosomes), so I think he could die a happy man after that.

If you want to see the spot, here it is:

Pepsi - New Neighbor - :60

It’s the only version I could find on my computer (it’s been a couple of years) and appears to still have rough audio and a rough V.O. in place (which means it was a version for client approval prior to final mix and layback), but you’ll get the picture. The file is 8.8 megs, so pretty-please with sugar on top– don’t link directly to it.

In addition to Eva Longoria, the spot also co-stars Suddenly Susan’s Nestor Carbonell (who also happens to be related to someone at PepsiCo’s HQ, along with being exceptionally nice to work with).

It was directed by Simon West via Saville Productions and edited by Brent Herrington at Frames Per Second. The music, “Mucha Muchacha,” was purchased from the estate of the late, still ever-so-great, Esquivel.

I get a CD/CW credit on the spot (though I’m happily giving a CW credit to the client for the “spice up..” line at the end of the spot :cough:), Roberto gets a CD credit, Pablo Reyes was the AD and, as always, Aldo Quevedo is our ECD.

I agree with Steve that the movie will likely muck up our already pretty badly mucked up industry, but he’ll have to admit she’s still easy on the eyes.

Roberto recently finished shooting another spot for Pepsi with Eva (without me, after we split the group) where she actually gets all wet dancing in the rain. If Steve begs, I’ll see if I can get a copy to post when it airs.

Email Article Monday, April 24th, 2006 at 04:07pm Mack Simpson

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