Commercial Actor Replacements That Caught Everyone's Attention
Whether you think they're cute and clever, or you consider them to be a plague on your devices, one thing's for sure: commercials are inescapable. Sure, we can dodge them to some degree by paying for premium cable or ad-free packages on streaming services, but even then, commercials will somehow find a way to infiltrate your life. So when major commercial actors or spokespeople get replaced in the biggest, most prominent ad campaigns, it rarely goes unnoticed.
Commercial actors are TV stars in their own right. Even if you don't know their names, you probably know their catchphrases. And, depending on how much media you consume, you may even be aware of things like how their hairstyles have changed over the years. When the face below the hair is different, that's when it becomes really jarring. From insurance and pharmaceutical ads to yogurt and donut spots, the following commercial actor replacements definitely caught everyone's attention.
Priceline
William Shatner may be best known for playing Captain Kirk in "Star Trek," but his role as Priceline's Negotiator is a close second for many people, especially those who love a reasonable price on last-minute travel deals. Shatner began driving a hard bargain for Priceline users back in 1998. He's been replaced a few times since then: He famously got "fired" in 2004, with his "Star Trek" co-star Leonard Nimoy taking his place. Even though that reunion got fans buzzing, it was nothing compared to the press when Priceline "killed" The Negotiator in a fiery bus crash in 2012.
Theresa Caputo, the so-called Long Island Medium, "channeled" him in a follow-up spot, which didn't go down well with some viewers: Skeptic D.J. Grothe challenged Priceline's CEO to have Caputo prove that she isn't a fake, offering to pay a million dollars to a charity of the company's choosing. The Negotiator turned up in another ad months later, acting like a spy who disappeared to start a new life as a surfer (but still wearing his famous suit).
Shatner's next big — and lasting — replacement came in 2013 when the company gave The Negotiator a secret daughter, played by "The Big Bang Theory" star Kaley Cuoco. "The Negotiator harbors many secrets, and this is just one of them," Shatner said in a press release. "It's another layer to the enigma of The Negotiator that shows us there are many different ways to find great hotel deals."
Dunkin' Donuts
Back in the 1980s, Dunkin' Donuts ads featured a character called Fred the Baker, played by Michael Vale. Fred was a humble baker whose catchphrase was "time to make the donuts." Execs wanted someone like Lou Jacobi (Uncle Morty in "My Favorite Year") to play Fred, and they even got him to read for the role. However, it was Vale who really blew them away. "We went through hundreds of people in the auditions because the role was so defining," Ron Berger, who came up with the campaign, told CNN. "As soon as Michael Vale walked into the bathroom in his pajamas and said 'Time to make the donuts, time to make the donuts,' we knew."
When Vale retired from the role in 1997 after 15 years of playing Fred, Dunkin' celebrated by throwing him a parade in Boston, the company's birthplace. Execs wanted to focus more on the customer experience in commercials rather than having a spokesperson, but in 2023, famous Bostonian Ben Affleck became the new face of Dunkin' with a hilarious Super Bowl Ad, working the drive-thru of a real Boston branch. Affleck returned to the Super Bowl in 2024 with another Dunkin' ad, teaming up with Matt Damon and Tom Brady to form the DunKings. The ad was another big hit. "The sight of Brady, Affleck, and Damon going full Dunkin'-Boston-nutso-Dunkachino during the Super Bowl? Sorry to RFK Jr., but it made for the best commercial of the night," Esquire raved.
Abilify
Can we count a commercial actor switch that got attention if the actors are animated? We're going to say yes, mainly because the difference is huge. Abilify is a medication that is "used to treat certain mental/mood disorders (such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome, and irritability associated with autistic disorder)," says WebMD. "It may also be used in combination with other medication to treat depression." In the 2010s, Abilify ads used a cartoon-style of animation with calming, pleasant colors. These ads won a lot of praise from those in the animation industry. However, in 2022, the company switched to a very different, computer-generated animation style.
The new ads for Abilify Maintena (a once-monthly maintenance treatment for bipolar I in adults) used a fairly realistic, Pixar-like animation style. They're very different from the traditional Abilify ads, but the new style apparently went over well with the company's target audience. "We wanted to pick an animation style that would resonate with our patients and certainly we didn't want to offend or minimize the illness," April Mitchell, a VP involved with the campaign, told FiercePharma. Three animation styles were tested with bipolar I patients, who overwhelmingly preferred the CGI style. It's interesting that the more realistic animation won out, especially since the original plan for the commercial was to shoot in live action (the original pandemic shoot dates made animation a more attractive option).
Trivago
Actor and musician Tim Williams has been in hit shows like "My So-Called Life" and "The Sopranos," but he's probably best known as the Trivago guy. He became a hit with viewers for his laid-back approach to the whole spokesperson thing. His stubble, casual shirt, and beltless jeans were part of an atypical approach that stuck in the minds of viewers, for better or worse. While some said he was too messy, others thought he was perfect. Rolling Stone even dubbed him "TV's sloppy, sexy pitchman." Modern eyes might not see the trouble with Williams' understated Trivago wardrobe, but back in the mid-2010s when Williams became the face of Trivago, it just wasn't the done thing.
Williams was charged with driving while intoxicated in 2019 after police found him passed out in a stationary vehicle, though the charges were later dropped after the actor "completed the alcohol education courses and community service required for pretrial diversion of first-time DWI offenders," ABC confirmed. The company began working with a variety of spokespeople for different markets around the world, but in 2023, actor James Sheldon became the sole pitchman for Trivago, speaking several different languages with the aid of AI. Viewers couldn't help but notice that the far-smarter shirt he wears in the ads doesn't seem to fit him properly. "How did nobody think to change that shirt," Redditor u/thrillhouse83 said, while u/Toronto-1975 added, "LOL all that effort to rebrand just so they could get a new spokesperson and dress him up like the sale rack at Sears."
State Farm
Jake from State Farm is one of those wild spokesperson stories that advertisers must dream about at night. Since 2020, the good neighbor character played by Chicagoan Kevin Miles has amassed a big following (his character's TikTok account has 1.2 million followers at the time of this writing). Jake from the State Farm commercials probably looks familiar to you because he's been in ads for everything from McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Pepsi to Hyundai, Ford, and eBay. However, he's now best known for the red polo and khakis that make up Jake's instantly recognizable outfit. The wildly popular spokesperson actually isn't the first Jake from State Farm: The original Jake From the State Farm isn't an actor at all.
Jake Stone, then a real-life State Farm agent, appeared in a State Farm commercial in 2011. The commercial shows a man's wife mistaking the great customer support Stone is providing her husband as a phone affair. She grabs the phone and demands to know what Jake's wearing — and Stone describes a costume that would become a thing of advertising legend. Stone even made a fun cameo in one of Miles' earliest State Farm Super Bowl commercials, officially passing on the Jake from State Farm khaki torch. Will these two ever end up in a Super Bowl commercial again? Only time will tell, but we hope so.
Simply
Eugene Cordero became the first on-camera spokesperson for Simply Beverages in 2022, after the Coca Cola-owned company enjoyed 20 years of voiceover-only spokesmanship from the silky-voiced Hollywood veteran Donald Sutherland. Cordero's commercials maintain the same sunny and sweet aura of Sutherland's Simply commercials, but add a twist of comedy. Making people smile is Cordero's strong suit, after all — he's known for his humorous roles in shows like "The Good Place" and "Star Trek: Lower Decks." You may also recognize him as Casey from the Marvel Cinematic Universe show "Loki."
Cordero's Simply ads feature him wearing a green velvet suit and riding a cute beverage cart around a picture-perfect grove, bringing fruity sweetness to all he sees. The whole idea is that choosing overly complicated things is often counterproductive — in one ad, the owner of a home with a "smart door" gets locked out of his own house and is left angered when the supposedly smart device alerts the local neighborhood watch to a potential break in.
Speaking to Bleeding Cool about the campaign, Cordero revealed that he was thrilled to be involved, especially as it's a first for the well-known drinks brand. "There's nothing like being part of something that people love to wake up to in the morning and drink and enjoy," the actor and comedian said. "I absolutely love the fact that I get to be the face for Simply for the first time that they're seeing a face."
Progressive
Comedy and commercials go together like 1960s headbands and bold lipstick — and Progressive's bubbly main mascot, Flo, combines all four. Stephanie Courtney took on the role in 2008, and the insurance bundling world has never been the same. Her character started out as a worker in a superstore but she's been all over the place since then, including the Barbie Dream House. "What they were looking for was basically a friendly neighborhood waitress," Courtney told Lohud about her Flo audition, adding: "She is super friendly and nice, almost to the point of madness, and I was like, 'I can do that.'"
In 2014, Jim Cashman started playing Jamie, Flo's aggressively upbeat sidekick. Commercial director Brendan Gibbons tells Shots that Cashman "is one of the funnier humans you're gonna meet." However, while fans and news outlets go gaga for Flo, reviews remain mixed on Jamie, even all these years later. Courtney is still playing Flo (and she's reportedly made millions from the role gig the years), though Jamie's role has become more prominent in recent years, much to the annoyance of some viewers. "His stupid face makes me want to disintegrate out of anger," Redditor r/CommercialsIHate said. "Back in the day, when it was mostly Flo, I ignored him. But now, Progressive is going all in on him. It's terrifying and infuriating."
Oikos
Men will only eat yogurt if they see a certified tough guy eating it. While that line of thinking may sound utterly bizarre in this day and age, it's the exact rationale behind Greek yogurt brand Oikos parting ways with celebrity spokesperson (and famous Greek-American) John Stamos. "We had a great run with him," Art D'Elia, Marketing VP at the brand's parent company, said in a 2015 statement (via Ad Age), adding: "We wanted a spokesperson and an advertising model that could help us appeal more to males and that's why we made the decision." Oikos ditched the guy who played Uncle Jesse on "Full House" for NFL star Cam Newton, but the partnership wasn't to last.
Just two years later, Newton made an offensive remark to female sports reporter Jourdan Rodrigue during an interview, implying that she didn't understand the game. Spokesperson Michael Neuwirth condemned the comments and confirmed that the yogurt had severed ties with Newton as a result. "It is entirely inconsistent with our commitment to fostering equality and inclusion in every workplace," he told ESPN. "It's simply not okay to belittle anyone based on gender." While Newton later apologized for his remarks, it wasn't enough to convince the brand to rekindle their relationship with him.
Nowadays, Oikos is advertised by "Bad Boy" star Martin Lawrence and former Denver Bronco Shannon Sharpe. The pair co-starred in a Super Bowl commercial in 2024, partaking in a round of golf. When their cart ends up in the water, Lawrence uses an Oikos-provided protein boost to pull it out. "We had a good script, but they gave us the freedom to ad-lib if we wanted to, and we added certain little things," the actor said (per Variety).
Liberty Mutual
Liberty Mutual commercials are actually pretty funny, but they play so often in the streaming world that the words "Limu Emu" are probably getting on a lot of peoples' nerves at this point. Doug (David Hoffman) and his loose-cannon emu partner in insurance slinging are the vaguely-70s duo from the "Limu Emu and Doug" ad campaign. What happens when a new face enters that picture? In 2023's "Replaced," Hoffman is shown reading through a script for a new ad and is shocked to discover that he's apparently being dropped for a guy who "doesn't even have a mustache!" The guy replacing Doug is played by Tanner Novlan, reprising his 2019 role as a struggling actor desperately trying out to be a Liberty Mutual spokesperson but failing because he pronounces "Liberty Mutual" as "Liberty Bibberty."
The fact that so many insurance commercials have deep lore is a little distressing, but that's where we're at. The threat of Doug getting the ax had folks on Reddit fairly split, especially on the Commercials I Hate subreddit. Some commenters said that it was time for a change, while others found themselves defending Doug. Less screen time isn't necessarily a problem for Hoffman, who is used to not having long to make his mark. In 2021, he told the New York Post: "I consider [the ads] to be a miniature series where it's growing, and just like with anything the writers and actors get to know each other better," he said. "With the bumper and the Liberty [jingle] we're down to 22 seconds for an ad, and with the 'You only pay what you need' tagline, now we've got 15 seconds to play with."
Jardiance
Perhaps the only thing more infuriating than earworm advert jingles are the internet trolls who take aim at the actors performing them. In 2023, Jardiance launched a bright, colorful ad featuring a Broadway-style song and dance number about "a little pill with a big story to tell." The diabetes management medication anthem was sung by Deanna Colón, an "America's Got Talent" and "Master Chef" alum. The commercial was inescapable, driving at least one Uproxx writer to the brink. While some criticism of the annoyingly catchy ad was fair, some people went way too far, with Colón receiving an onslaught of nasty online remarks about her weight. As such, it's not very surprising that she didn't appear in the next ad.
Jardiance made a new commercial in 2024. The song and look stayed, but the set and main actor changed. Rachel Strutt sang her heart out, and — you guessed it — the haters continued to mock. The new Jardiance commercial lady has the internet divided, and this highlights a couple truths in advertising. One: Advertisers are aggressively repetitive and likely drive possible customers away with overplayed ads. Two: The internet is a breeding ground for hate, full of sexism, ageism, and bigotry. Of course, that's nothing new. Jardiance deserves credit for not replacing Colón with someone who looks totally different to appease the haters.