Prison Break Star’s TVC in Chinese Market
Posted on Apr 24, 2009 by Steven Lin | Filed under: Shanzhai, Society
This time it’s not a shanzhai ad.
Wentworth Miller, the British-born American actor who plays Michael Scofield in the wildly popular Fox series Prison Break, has made tons of money in the Chinese market. His latest TV commercial–one you can’t see on American television–was made for Chevrolet’s Cruze:
Before this, Wentworth Miller had already made unwitting appearances in shanzhai car commercials. Beijing Hyundai seems to have produced an especially lame viral video to promote its Elantra. We really have no idea whether the company had anything to do with this.
We all know that in the late 20th century, American film stars appeared in lots of Japanese TV commercials (think of Bill Murray’s character in Lost in Translation), because they can make money and avoid the negative influence to their personal reputation for making annoying TVCs. Now, they come to China.
The first Chinese TV commercial from Wentworth Miller was for City & Me. Please don’t imagine it’s a chic brand like GAP that hired Miller for its print ads on GQ. City & Me is basically a new down-market clothing brand from the Wenzhou-based Meters/Bonwe Group, though the TVC makes it all look quite fashionable:


June 1st, 2009 at 6:49 pm
[...] Meters/Bonwe Group, the down-market clothing brand who invited Wentworth Miller to star in their TVCs, now has Optimus Prime on their side. Here’s Meters/Bonwe’s latest video ad for their [...]