Branded

Successful brand actors tend to rave about their time playing the face of a brand. Letting go is another story. For most artists, achieving a huge commercial success, be it a hit song or movie or novel, guarantees another shot at stardom; the opposite is true for most brand actors. Once you’re the face of one major product, no other major product wants you.

This Bloomberg Businessweek story about what it’s like to become the face of a company is quite something. I sincerely wonder how often Paul Marcarelli, a.k.a. the ”Can you hear me now?” guy from the Verizon ads, gets asked that same question while on the phone with friends. (He spoke to the Atlantic last year about that job’s effect on his life.)