Popstar and broadcaster Myleene Klass has starred in her fair share of ads in the almost 20 years since she rose to fame in pop group Hear’Say.
Santander, Mothercare, British Airways, Littlewoods and Marks & Spencer are among the roster of advertisers she has worked with.
Speaking during a special live-recorded episode of Global Change Agents with Lianna Brinded at the Verizon Media IAB UK luncheon event at Advertising Week Europe, Klass revealed the campaign she most enjoyed working on: a 2008 ad for Pantene.
In the ad, for Pantene’s Pro V Volume and Body range, Klass sits at a classical grand piano and plays an energetic version of Daft Punk’s 2001 hit “Aerodynamic”.
Klass revealed that for the first two days of the shoot in Prague she had actually been instructed to play a Bach song instead. At “the 11th hour,” the director decided to switch up the track to make it more modern, she said.
“It had a massive impact and they said to me they’d never seen sales like it because the … marriage of it all coming together was so brilliant.”
Klass said a more recent ad she thinks is “genius” — but doesn’t star in herself — is McCain’s “We Are Family.” The frozen food brand’s campaign first launched in 2017 and shows a diverse range of what it describes as “modern day families.”
“The idea that a child comes home and it’s about sitting at a family table with whoever is your family: it could be your mum, it could be your two dads, it could be your granny, it could be your brother from another mother,” said Klass. “I love the idea that you make your own family and I think that’s where things are moving to now.”
Klass acknowledged that the ad may make some viewers feel uncomfortable, but she thinks the brand “pitched it beautifully” and recognises a more modern reflection of family dynamics.
Click here for the full Myleene Klass interview.
The next episode of Yahoo Finance UK’s Global Change Agents with Lianna Brinded will be available here on April 3. Our guest is Eileen Burbidge MBE, partner at Passion Capital, chair of Tech Nation and non-executive director at Dixons Carphone.