09 November 2007

Ford, tampons and ice cream... oh my!

So I'm officially the FORD girl. Original title, I know. Stuff like that, amazingly enough just falls into my lap. I made it into a national commercial without even thinking twice about it. I don't know if it's luck, my subliminal willing things to happen, or my love for trolling everything on craigslist until I hit paydirt.

To answer the same question I've already responded to a million times, after completing a car study for a marketing company, I was contacted by another group who offered to give me a Ford Edge to drive around for a week and pay me too, in exchange for my opinion, and them being allowed to videotape me (clothing optional... j/k) while providing my candid opinion about the car. I did it. Then I completely forgot about it. Well.... a month later I got a phone call from the company rep, asking permission for their usage of lil' ol' me in their T.V. ads. Out of fear of looking like a total cornball, I didn't tell a soul about the commercial.

My mom was the first to call me late on a Monday night. She told me that she had just seen the commercial on a major network channel. Oookay. The onslaught of recognition began the next day. The commercial aired E V E R Y W H E R E. All different channels. All hours of the day and night. It became pretty relentless. E V E R Y O N E saw it and they were sure to let me know. Constantly. At work, in the street, even at Wal-Mart. There I was, standing in line with a package of M&M's, lint roller, twin pack of double AA batteries, green tea gum, Tampons, nasal spray and a pint of Strawberry ice cream for my friend Nessa, and I got accosted by the checkout clerk. She acknowledged me immediately in an excited, flustered fashion. Her husband had seen my commercial a bunch of times during a football game last weekend and I reallllly looked like this one actress in a cheerleading movie she had seen...blah blah blah. The checker examined each of my items closely, making my simple 10 items or less purchase kinda stretch out into a far more intimate experience than I was prepared for. I mean, here I was with almost enough MacGyver-esque ingredients in my handy-dandy cart to make a bomb (sans kitty litter) and this lady would probably use it as a conversation starter with everyone else she ran into for the remainder of the day. Great.

That's me... making simple experiences memorable for all.