Well, he’s been trying to rescue his pension pot by doing some adverts for a Polish bank and making a few people laugh in the process.
Celebrity endorsement is not a new phenomenon in Poland, but it was the first time a well-known foreign star appeared in a bank ad. Despite the fact that both the Monty Python series and Fawlty Towers have been shown numerous times on Polish TV with the infamous Polish one-voice dubbing (see this post) and with – at times – questionable translation, they have always been enormously popular in Poland.
John Cleese may not be a household name, but is certainly well-known and well-recognised – and respected. Hence his appearance in Polish ads a few months ago was widely discussed, but also raised a few eyebrows. Cleese and his humour have always been seen as more ‘sophisticated’ and ‘very English’, but this particular ad was aimed at a more mass audience than his other TV productions, hence questions about its effectiveness.
But by using references to – among others – pierogi and a small, often derided Polish town Pcim (the butt of many Polish jokes), the makers of the ad very cleverly combined English and Polish humour. See for yourself:
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