A shocked academic this week reported that RS Thomas's face is now on crisp packets, but he's far from the first writer to lend their brand to others'
The late poet RS Thomas, whose face was spotted this week on a crisp packet, is far from being the first author used in advertising, whether alive or dead, paid to plug, or unable to prevent, posthumous purported endorsements for products they would have hated …
William Shakespeare
The supreme literary salesman, cheekily used to flog everything from Red Bull, Coca-Cola, Stella Artois and Marlboro, to Mercedes Benz and Levis. The Bardic brand's associations include hyper-creativity and discriminating shopping and sexiness; Romeo and Juliet figures a lot; the histories and mature tragedies (bar "To be or not to be") hardly at all.
Walt Whitman
Currently selling iPad Airs, in a "Your Verse" campaign entirely based on a Whitman quote in Dead Poets Society. Other unlikely posthumous pitchmen include Darwin (BMW), Kerouac (Gap), Scott Fitzgerald and DH Lawrence (David Lynch ads for Obsession perfume). William Burroughs was still, improbably, alive, though, when he appeared in a 90s ad for Nike sneakers.
Émile Zola
Part of the 19th century's greatest celebrity endorsement coup, Zola – along with Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Conan Doyle, composers, actors, royals and Pope Leo XIII – recommended Vin Mariani, a tonic blending wine and coca leaves, "for overworked men, delicate women" and even "sickly children".
Ernest Hemingway
Continued where the Mariani addicts left off by similarly advertising a booze brand – Ballantine ale – as the fuel of geniuses. Like John Steinbeck's contribution to the same campaign, the ad features a letter from the macho writer enthusing about the beer (great after wrestling with a marlin, apparently). PanAm and Parker pens also got the Hemingway nod.
John Betjeman
Made a series of 1950s commercials for Shell that also promoted British tourist sites. A role model for Spike Milligan – who similarly made TV ads combining petrol and travel, as well as joining an illustrious lineup advertising the Guardian – and later Roger McGough.
George Plimpton
The suave socialite, Paris Review founder and offbeat sports writer has been described as "the most ubiquitous author-spokesperson", with an ad portfolio including Saab, Carlsberg, a bank, popcorn, swimming pools and an 80s home video games system.
Frederick Forsyth
Rolex's long-running campaign normally features heavyweight US figures and movie stars, but at the height of his 70s/80s fame the British thriller writer made the cut – Rolexes and his novels are both "original concepts, meticulously executed", one print ad waffles.
Elmore Leonard
Photographed by Annie Leibovitz in the 80s, he broke into the celebrity elite (as did Stephen King) of proud American Express "cardmembers": unlike the Hemingway-Plimpton-Forsyth ads, theirs don't suggest adopting the relevant brand would mean starting to live like them – they're geeky examples of super-success, not of masculine cool and an enviable all-round lifestyle.
Fay Weldon
Puzzlingly, female authors are rarely invited to endorse products (with the notable exception of Monica Ali in M&S's 2013 autumn campaign). Weldon, a former copywriter, was instead paid £18,000 to shoehorn references to the jeweller Bulgari into her 2001 novel The Bulgari Connection. Critical reaction was not positive.
Roger McGough
Now the go-to poet for ads, voicing high-profile campaigns for Quality Street, John Lewis and (controversially using Keats as unpaid copywriter) Waitrose. What advertisers want from him is not his reputation or image, as with earlier author-endorsers, or even his words, but his non-posh voice and gently appreciative point of view.
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