That time when Diddy was in a Proactiv commercial
In 2006, Sean Combs and Vanessa Williams touted the benefits of Proactiv. Jessica Simpson was also a celebrity endorser. But Simpson isn’t currently in prison under suicide watch. And when I hear her name, the phrase “1,000 bottles of baby oil,” doesn’t come to mind.
If you saw the Sean Combs infomercial back then, it wouldn’t have registered much. They were so ubiquitous the company could have launched a Proactiv cable channel and saved money.
You can watch it in all its splendor on Adland but looking back with my years of experience in advertising and the current sordid news headlines, I have questions.
Why is Diddy even in this? His first album (released nine years earlier) went seven-times platinum. He’d produced everyone from Mary J Blige to The Notorious B.I.G. to Jay Z by then. He’d launched his Sean John fashion line. Why go the Suzanne Sommers’ ThighMaster route when your star is ascending?
Why is Vanessa Williams “interviewing” him? Is she the new Barbara Walters? Is she supposed to be the host of a new show about acne? This one’s a head scratcher especially when they add in testimonials from regular folks disrupting their back and forth. This scenario would have worked if there were hard hitting questions about acne. “We know that acne doesn’t just leave physical scars. What other scars are you hiding? Tell us about how your ninth grade math class humiliated you by calling you Pizza Face.”
Instead we get Stephanie Ruhle interviewing Kamala Harris. “How fun was it working at McDonald’s as a middle class kid?”
Why is the music so cheesy? Perhaps they blew the ad budget on Williams and Combs but you’d have thought they would have at least asked if Diddy might have taken their cheap needle drop music and done something with it. Maybe an extra backbeat or a record scratch or a guest appearance from KRS-One. It just smacks of a hugely missed opportunity. Hell, Diddy could have knocked out a banger and released it as a separate single and made Proactiv cool. Remember, this is the guy who introduced a whole new generation to Jimmy Page and Godzilla.
Why is he even talking about pimples? This might be the easiest question to answer at least from Proactiv’s strategic standpoint. They want to remind the viewing audience that pimples can happen at any age to men and women alike. Diddy is 37 here if you can believe it. It also makes sense to appeal to the African American demographic to show that Proactiv works no matter what kind of skin type you have.
Jessica Simpson, the other “star” of these informercials was a 25 year old woman at the time, although she looked younger, and fit more into the traditional demographic one would associate with say, Noxzema.
It’s amazing how in light of what we know, how normal and well-adjusted Diddy is here if not a little bit dorky. Like he was really appealing to everyday America and not the Satanic Hollywood Illuminati Sex-Cult demographic.
At least that’s what I thought. Until we get to one sentence.
“One of the things about Proactiv is it moisturizes my situation and preserve my sexy, and then I’m off to doing what I need to do."
I wonder how many other ways Diddy has moisturized his situation over the years?
How does Proactiv help one preserve their sexiness? Is it made with adrenochrome?
And then the kicker. After his sexiness is preserved and his situation is moisturized he can go about his day, off doing what he needs to do.
What he needs to do.
