• by John Gaffney , June 6, 2002

Britney plays beach bingo. Jason Alexander hawks fried chicken. Survivors eat bugs. Cindy drinks Diet Pepsi for her kids. They’re all BBDO spots and the agency is in the midst of a torrid streak for the first half of 2002. In fact, in a recent poll of the top ten most effective TV spots, measured by the Intermedia Advertising Group, BBDO took the top spot and six more.

It’s no coincidence that celebrities appear as a centerpiece in five of those commercials. Celebrity marketing is an area BBDO has excelled at through the years, especially in its work with Pepsi. BBDO chief operating officer Jeffery Mordos says some of the secret to his agency’s success lies in using celebrities as “topspin,” not as the central messenger for the ad.

“We don’t start with the celebrity,” Mordos says. “We always use the celebrity to enhance the spot. The first thing we start with, always, is the strategy. What is it that we want to say? The we decide whether it would benefit to have a celebrity in that role.”

BBDO’s Britney Spears spot for Pepsi, that shows the singer as a Pepsi spokesperson through the decades, won IAG’s poll for “most effective commercial.” That spot debuted during the Super Bowl. IT represents the continuation of a consistent Pepsi strategy to communicate a young, fun and entertaining message. Mordos says the relatively new KFC strategy, which tries to distance the chain from the notion of “fast food,” is effectively communicated by Seinfeld-alum Alexander. In its current crop of commercials, the agency doesn’t take its celebrities too seriously.

“You need to use celebrities properly,” Mordos says. “A lot of times that means not being too serious about them. The bottom line is that you have to be careful. You can’t present a star in a way that will turn people off. They know they’re being paid. They don’t want a lot of nonsense. Entertain in the ads and consumers become willing to bond with you.”