A Reddit User Summed Up McCann’s ‘Real People, Not Actors’ Campaign in One Image

By Patrick Coffee 

McCann’s long-running “Real People” campaign obviously works, or the client wouldn’t keep ordering more spots. If you watch broadcast TV at all (and even if you don’t), they’ve been pretty much unavoidable for the past several years.

Lots of people make fun of the ads, and then there were those Zebra Corner guys who inserted themselves and their hard Boston accents to mildly humorous effect. But they keep running.

So McCann has been doing something right, and the layoffs that hit their Commonwealth team and other offices this week didn’t have anything to do with the quality of the creative.

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All that said, reddit user wildermoose left a truly brilliant entry in the “starter packs” thread earlier this week that sums up the equation behind every spot in the still-running series.

This guy’s questions so closely mirror our own: who are these “real” people? Are they legitimately surprised that the autos in question turn out to be Chevy? Most importantly, what the hell is a JD Power, and why do we keep hearing about it?

Many others have addressed these questions, but we would almost prefer not to know the answers.

The full post was not embeddable, but of course you should check it out and read all the comments.

And FWIW, this latest “real people” effort was a refreshing change.

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