What Is the Most Bizarre Celebrity Car Endorsement of All Time?
Serena Aburahma
· 4 min read
There are a lot of car and car insurance commercials, and companies have to pull out every trick they can to make their products stand out. Memorable celebrity car endorsements can help turn a
new car
into a household name. Not every celebrity endorsement works out, though. MotorBiscuit
listed some of the most bizarre celebrity endorsements of all time. Instead of making potential customers interested in the cars, these celebrities left viewers with raised eyebrows and unanswered questions.
Tiger Woods didn't sell many Buicks
From 1999 to 2008, GM hired one of the greatest golfers of all time to advertise their Buick vehicles. Despite Tiger Woods working with Buick for nearly a decade, the celebrity car endorsement did not seem to do much to boost sales.
The idea of using Woods to advertise Buick does make sense in theory. Golf can be seen as a luxurious activity, and GM wanted to associate the Buick brand with luxury. Plus, Woods was a champion, and who doesn't want to pair with a winner?
In practice, though, the Tiger Woods commercials for Buick were just odd and left viewers scratching their heads.
One ad showed Tiger Woods getting sucked into a tornado filled with Buick cars and landing safely in a Buick Rendezvous. Hopefully, he reviewed
if his insurance covers tornado damage
, but the commercial itself didn't make drivers want a Buick.Let Jerry find your price in only 45 seconds
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Matthew McConaughey's strange car ads
MORE: The Stars of the Nation's Most Iconic Car Commercials
Bizarre and mesmerizing, Matthew McConaughey's Lincoln commercials were hard to explain but impossible to forget.
Each one involved the celebrity and Oscar-winning actor sitting in a Lincoln vehicle in a desert, empty city roads, or other unusual locations. What truly made these commercials as memorable as they were strange was that McConaughey delivered bizarre monologues throughout them.
Now, the quality of Lincoln vehicles like the updated Navigator luxury SUV often speaks for itself. Viewers of McConaughey Lincoln commercials likely didn't learn anything new about the cars, though, because he was mostly speaking in riddles.
Naturally, these commercials inspired parodies from comedians like Conan O'Brien and Ellen DeGeneres. Whatever Matthew McConaughey was saying must have been effective, however. After debuting this celebrity car endorsement, Lincoln sales increased by 13%.
Which celebrity time-traveled with Kias?
MORE: A Sprinkle of Stardust: The Genius Behind Celebrity Car Commercials
Celebrity and six-time NBA All-Star Blake Griffin is no stranger to commercials, and one of his first endorsements involved a surreal series of ads for Kia. In his commercials with Kia, Griffin used Kia vehicles as time machines.
As bizarre as these commercials were, they were not the most memorable moment of Blake Griffin's time with Kia.
This moment came during the 2011 Slam Dunk Contest in an impressive feat of both athleticism and guerilla marketing. To win the competition, Griffin dunked a basketball after jumping over a Kia Optima's hood.
Seeing Blake Griffin jump over a car probably didn't directly make people want to buy a Kia, but this celebrity car endorsement worked. Kia's sales shot up by 45% after Griffin became a spokesman.
To give each of these weird endorsements credit, they were at least trying something different, even if it didn't work. Standing out in the crowded advertising market can be tough. An innovation in buying car insurance,
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