I’ve seen a lot of commercials lately that supposedly use “Real people. Not actors.” Does this phrase actually mean anything?
Presumably, it implies that the people praising the product the commercial is trying to sell are doing so based on their own experiences, rather than because they have been paid to read some words of ad copy written by someone else.
They don’t want to use animatronic actors because, given today’s best technology, they would likely be mildly creepy and fall into the “uncanny valley”, thus scaring customers away.
One day that statement will be meant literally.
I suppose the real people could be scripted and do retakes etc…
But if they aren’t members of the Screen Actors Guild, maybe it is a legal loophole?
It’s kind of an exception. A person can be used one time in a commercial and they don’t have to join SAG to do it. I think it’s because they aren’t specifically considered professional actors by SAG because it’s a one time thing.
That they are real people does not mean that there is no script, set, or multiple takes.
And you don’t have to join SAG until your second gig. And usually you don’t, because it is expensive.
In that case, IMHO, the phrase is essentially meaningless.
Any advertising phrase is meaningless until some authority rules that it has a legally enforceable meaning.
No, it’s not. It means exactly what it says. There are thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of actors in America without a SAG card. The vast majority of people doing local theater are not in SAG, e.g. SAG is completely irrelevant here.
Obviously, the real people will be culled and coached and properly made-up, so no one is pretending that negative views of the product will be aired. But the responsibility of the company (through the ad agency that makes the commercial) is to find people who have nice things to say about their own use of the product that will stand up to FTC (or other governmental body) scrutiny. That’s hugely different from using actors.
The implication is — correctly in a narrow sense — actors and actresses are venal people paid to lie for money and career.
Unlike plain, ordinary salt-of-the-earth regular folks who can be counted on to do the right thing.
Like copywriters, marketing account executives, craftsmen, sellers, businessmen, policemen, lobbyists and local councillors.
Got it in one. Do you think the advertisers are paying all that money for real people to give their uncensored opinions? It is possible they take what these people actually said as input and maybe tighten it up a bit. But the goal of the ad is the same as the goal of an ad with actors.
You mean that if they don’t get it right, they are shot?
For a union shoot, it doesn’t matter if you have done a dozen non-equity shows. By your second film shoot (and commercials are usually film shoots) you need to join SAG. A non-union shoot is a different matter.
If the ad says “not an actor” or " a real customer" then that might be enforced. It never says that these are the customer’s own words.
Nah. Casting director offices aren’t big enough to store the bodies.
Lying for money is the very definition of actor, isn’t it?
My daughter’s manager used “I love Cheerios” to cull kids when he held open auditions. My daughter didn’t love Cheerios. But she knew, even at 10 years old, to lie about loving Cheerios - and so she got signed.
And almost all of those people don’t make their living from acting. They have other jobs (waiter & bartender are common ones) that provide the majority of their income. So the advertising company can defensibly argue they are “not actors”.
So it’s meaningless. It’s a lie, like all advertising.
What kind of a father are you, Voyager? Cheerios are delicious.
From all this, I gather that actors are not real people! :eek:
No matter what you think of advertising, the law says there are claims and there are claims.
Real people is a legal claim and subject to a higher standard. As I said above, real people have to have had real experiences with the product. Actors can never have seen it before. That’s not interchangeable. It has nothing to do with how someone makes a living.