ANZ Recruits Simon Baker As ‘The Mentalist’ For Campaign

Due to certain negative attributes such as fees, interest rates and the ability to lure you into a grotesque credit slump, banks hold the kind of unbridled hate usually reserved for neo religions and mimes. Therefore it is important for banks to cram their advertising campaigns with as many non-banky distractions as possible in order to get consumers’ attention and prevent them from doing this.

ANZ’s latest campaign features dreamy ex-pat Simon Baker, who stars in the just-launched series of ads in which he appears as his character from television show The Mentalist, Patrick Jane. An interestingly meta tactic for a financial institution.

Does it work?

Have a look…

This is a strange strategy. Firstly, casting an Australian actor – and a fairly high-profile one at that – as an American in an Australian ad for an Australian bank seems, frankly, weird. Also, why is ANZ teaming up with a television show anyway? This is the vaguest cross-promotional collaboration we’ve seen since Hello Kitty car oil.

The writing is far too talkie to engage the average viewer (I zoned out pretty quickly), and Baker, while extremely easy on the eyes, has that bizarre hybrid Aus/American accent going on that serves as a real distraction (from both his attractiveness and whatever the hell he’s talking about).

All I could think in the second ad was “hey isn’t that former Celebrity Big Brother contestant, Imogen Bailey?”

Thoughts?

Via Mumbrella

More Stuff From PEDESTRIAN.TV