TAG Heuer’s complete “Duel” ad pits Steve McQueen against Lewis Hamilton: Everyone Loses
TAG Heuer recently ran an ad campaign for their Monaco brand watch. It was a contest to guess the winner of the above “Duel” between two important figures in the history of the Monaco series, Steve McQueen and Lewis Hamilton. The contest officially closed on June 10th, 2009. Apparently, it’s been one of TAG Heuer’s most popular online contests ever.
According to TAG Heuer, Lewis Hamilton won the Duel… but I don’t think anyone wins with this ad. They sliced up the original footage from the Steve McQueen 1971 film Le Mans to shoehorn his image into the ad, and then used a poor quality voice actor that sounds nothing like him to dub over his lines. Ironically though, McQueen’s shoehorn/voiced over performance is better than Lewis Hamilton’s actual performance. And McQueen’s been dead for almost 30 years. Overall, the ad is fairly lame on that level. Still, it has racing footage, so I can’t call it all bad. Check out the full version:
TAG Heuer’s reasoning for using Steve McQueen in this ad is because the company is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2009, and McQueen helped bring the Monaco brand into prominence by wearing one on his wrist in the film Le Mans.