Talk about 'identity theft!' That singer in those commercials isn’t even
real!
By Helen A.S. Popkin
updated 9:07 a.m. ET, Thurs., Aug. 7, 2008
He is the baby-faced everyman caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare of credit
score woes. A troubadour of the American m*****, his songs reflect the
far-reaching effects of the housing crisis, predatory lending,
skyrocketing gas prices and the economic downturn — or maybe he’s just
one in former John McCain advisor Phil Gramm’s nation of “whiners”
suffering a “mental depression.”
He’s the FreeCreditRe****t.com guy, and you are so totally in love with
him you want to have like, 10 million of his babies. Or you hate his
guts and if you never see him or his stupid drummer and bass player
again it’ll be too soon.
And if so, really, who could blame you? Those ubiquitous TV commercials
featuring his three-man indie rock band with their infectious ditties of
financial failure have aired more than 90,000 times since the
advertising campaign’s October 2007 launch (in case you lost count).
“Aside from just the astounding scale of success, we’re pretty tickled
by all the FreeCreditRe****t.com spoofs and parodies on YouTube,” says
Dave Mulhefeld, the songwriting phenom behind the über jingles and
senior copy writer at The Martin Agency — the same advertising
masterminds behind the Geico gecko and cavemen. Meanwhile, the
commercials are directed by the comedy mastermind behind “Dude, Where’s
My Car?” and “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.”
(You heard me. “Mastermind.” Those movies are frakkin’ howl-arious.)
As of now, YouTube carries more than 70 FreeCreditRe****t.com homages,
ranging from parents filming their kids’ renditions to one guy full-out
rocking on acoustic guitar. According to the company, traffic and
member****ps to the site have gone up 20 percent since the campaign
began, with more than 5 million current members. The cultural impact of
this musical commercial series is so pervasive that a million critical
consumer news stories about how the actual product isn’t actually —
well, “free” — would do little to slow its momentum.
And there are critical exposes. The New York Times published a scathing
article earlier this week about FreeCreditRe****t.com which is owned by
Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus. Heck, msnbc.com’s own
New York Times bestselling author Bob Sullivan got all up in
FreeCreditRe****t.com’s business two years ago. But the written word is
no match for that adorable new “Bicycle” ad featuring our boy and his
band that the company loosed on the American TV viewing audience just
this week.
Any consumer outrage over FreeCreditRe****t.com has nothing to do with
the site and how you don’t get your “free” credit re****t until you and
your credit card number enroll in the $14.95 per month credit-monitoring
service, of which you get the first seven days free, but if you fail to
read the fine print and don’t cancel, your credit card is automatically
charged until you do.
(Not to mention, if singer boy’s credit is so bad, how would he even
have a credit card to register if he ever got around to checking it
out?)
Any shock associated with FreeCreditRe****t.com doesn’t come from any
practices that might be construed as misleading. The freakout occurs
when viewers learn that the guy in the commercial isn’t actually The
Guy. That isn’t his band. He was never half of a marriage doomed by his
dream girl’s heretofore unmentioned defaulted credit cards. He and the
wife didn’t make their first (and last?) home together in the same place
he conducts band practice — her parent’s basement.
In fact, identity theft never forced his employment at a pirate-themed
seafood restaurant or that due to his willful ignorance regarding his
own credit score, his automotive choices were limited to a used
subcompact which caused his legs to stick to the vinyl and his posse
getting laughed at.
In fact, Baby-faced Everyman’s sweet folk rock voice — one that would
fit perfectly opening for Superchunk in Chapel Hill, NC sometime in 1992
or narrating a “School House Rock” lesson — isn’t even his voice.
Because, get this. Dude isn’t even American. Talk about identity theft!
Baby-faced Everyman is played with heartbreaking adorability by French
Canadian actor Eric Violette — who is also a skilled singer and
musician. So while the 27-year-old isn’t faking the guitar he’s playing
on camera, he certainly doesn’t sound like that.
Now that you know that, check him out. Violette looks totally different,
right? Suddenly he’s Hot Foreign Guy, right? (And ladies, he's single!)
Meanwhile, upon gaining this information, a co-worker claimed he could
see Eric lip syncing with a French accent, which is totally not true.
The guy — and the commercials — are just that good.
In a recent road trip down the East Coast of the United States, Violette
learned just how effective his acting is. “People wanted to take
pictures with me,” he says in a telephone interview from his home just
outside Montreal — where nobody recognizes him except his friends and
family. (The commercials don’t air in Canada.) “It’s very strange but
very funny. When some people recognized me, they’d have a big smile on
their face.”
Violette says all this with a dreamy French accent, which is why he
isn’t the guy singing in the commercial. This is a story about an
American slacker’s woes, a guy who Violette assures us he’s nothing like
— his credit score is pretty good. Though, he adds, credit scores don’t
carry the frightening weight in Canada like they do here in the good old
U.S. of A.
Still, he can relate to the stories. “Nobody wants a woman who doesn’t
have good credit,” Violette says, making a joke about the first, perhaps
most controversial commercial in the series, “Dreamgirl.” (Is bad credit
the new “fat?")
Oh the arguments we’ve had in the office over whether the singer is a
horrible individual holding band practice in a basement apartment so
cramped the drummer is forced to use the toilet as a stool. There the
guy is, yowling about his gal’s lousy credit while she’s trying to pick
up around that dump.
“We don’t know the whole story,” is my defense against the majority who
find the guy’s actions indefensible.
“It’s like in real life,” says Violette.
Actually, jingle writer Dave Mulhefeld admits that first commercial is
somewhat autobiographical. What’s more, he did work in a fish restaurant
and drive a used subcompact — though a nicer one than the blue beater
featured in the commercial. Mulhefeld says the next set of
FreeCreditRe****t.com commercials are inspired more from YouTube comments
than his past.
“We looked for currents of things that fans really really liked and were
talking about and we used that to inform the new spots,” he says. After
the latest “Bicycle” commercial, in which our guy is forced to trade in
his used subcompact for a fixed-gear bike, you’ll find him and the rest
of the band rocking the Renaissance Faire (our hands-down favorite) and
then working as cater waiters at a rock-star party that sadly, isn’t
theirs.
As the campaign moves further into the theater of the absurd, you can
expect to find the pirate hat and the cranky old lady, viewer “Easter
eggs” featured in every episode. Don’t expect things to look up for this
troika of despair, however.
“I don’t see our singer learning his lesson anytime soon,” Mulhefeld
says.
© 2008 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26061279/
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It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.
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