Just for the Cheap Celebrity of It!

So, I find myself watching what may be termed "a lot" of reality TV—Don't judge. I can feel you judging—Worthwhile entertainment does exist out there, especially on Bravo, and especially the Project Runways and Top Chefs. But, despite my fandom, I have to take an opposing stance to Diet Coke's new TV ads*. The recent ads featured PR's Heidi Klum and TC's Tom Colicchio. 

Um, Diet Coke, I'm worried about the direction this is going. Sure, Heidi was a supermodel or whatever, and she's nice and all, but you used to get people like Penelope Cruz and Adrian Brody. And Tom is lovably curmudgeonly, but he's really not an official celebrity. You also used to have Paula Abdul, before she became a reality TV star, when she actually made her own music and before she went all wacky and nonsensical. But she's nice, I guess. 

Anyway, I am just concerned that we'll soon be seeing Diet Coke spots with Real Housewives and that shrill Jeff from Flipping Out, doing such over the fact that someone brought him a Diet Pepsi (or God forbid, Jonathan from Blowout, crying his eyes out and seeing his therapist over his love of Diet Coke ... Yikes). Do you see my concern here? You have an established brand to protect here, and this is a potentially very slippery slope down to having Tool Academy endorsers.  

Don't get me wrong, those shows are guilty pleasures for me, but I don't think I want to have those people making me feel like I need to be enjoying a tall frosty glass of Aspartame. 

* Which, as an owner of TiVo, I wouldn't typically be viewing, except that I had to watch the last part of the Oscars live since I got home late and didn't want to be behind on watercooler discussions in the morning; I didn't have a choice. Had to watch those silly commercial interruptions, not the product placementy commercials that appear as part of the reality TV shows (Bluefly.com Accessories Wall. Quaker Oats Challenge). But that's another post entirely.