M&C Saatchi teamed up with Emotive, APN News & Media’s content marketing arm, and Fuel Communications to create a campaign for Australian broadband and cable company Optus starring Ricky Gervais.
The campaign promotes the company bringing Netflix to Australia and sees Gervais acting in a typically sardonic fashion. In the above 60-second spot, for example, he boasts of the “shedload” of money he asked for to do the spot, and insistence that he put in as little effort as possible. He also admits to having never heard of Optus and concludes that “They’ll use it” despite not being pleased at his lack of effort. It’s a pretty spot on use of Gervais, letting him basically do what he does best. Other ads in the campaign see Gervais rushing to get in his message for a YouTube pre-roll ad while admonishing viewers for what they’re probably watching, celebrating his own shows, and declaring himself “World President of Entertainment.” Gervais is no stranger to advertising, having appeared in spots for Netflix and Audi before, but this campaign comes much closer to living up to Gervais’ comedic potential than past efforts.