What more can they do?

My mind stopped hen I was going through the CBC articles and it was (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/armstrong-wrexham-ryan-reynolds-nuvei-1.6818664) where we see ‘How Ryan Reynolds became Canada’s unlikeliest business mogul’ and to be honest, I am not sure that I agree. The man has played his time right. The most unlikely X-Files extra in season 2 (1994) got additional roles all over the place and at some point he got cast against top line actors and actresses. He held his ground and we all saw he was destined for some great roles. I can only speculate how he did it, but at some point he saw that his acting could get him more. And this is not for all and not for the faint of heart. He has the brains to see through things and he cashed in. 

Aviation Gin
Mint Mobile
Wrexham Football
Nuvei

Are only 4 of the visible part. 

I called him (on more than one occasion) the craziest marketeer on the planet. He comes across flaky, but what matters is that he brings a message. In ONE advertisement he basically created global awareness to Nuvei. One ad did that. Like he did with other brands. Unlike many actor and actresses who become a face of something, he added (as I personally see it) his voice and insight and that is gold in marketing and as I see it, he figured it out and in the end he loaded two faces into over $2,500,000,000 (Aviation Gin and Mint Mobile), where this goes is anyones guess. I cannot say how this started. Was it pure luck to get involved with these two, did he see something others overlooked. Your guess is as good as mine and until his auto biography comes out we can just guess. But what is clear is that the nice Canadian guy we want as a neighbour saw that he was worth more and he got to cash in big time. This was not all luck. If you saw the advertisements he had done with Aviation Gin, Mint Mobile and one ad in Nuvei you can see that he is crazy as a doornail, but in this he gets a message across and the next thing you think is “Is there a Mint Mobile near here?” That is not the US marketing BS (like Microsoft and several other brands) it comes across as real and as a genuine article. As I see it , he sells by not selling things which is a rare ability to say the least. Yes, an actor (actresses too) are trained in this, but Ryan Reynolds is one of the few that actually used his brain and got the message across. 

As such when I see CBC give us “A recent Bloomberg piece compared Reynolds’s ventures to other celebrity-owned brands run by the likes of George Clooney, Kim Kardashian and Jay-Z. None of that guarantees success. Wrexham fell short of promotion last year. The Mint Mobile sale may still be challenged by regulators and no investment is ever a sure bet. But Reynolds has carved out a unique role and traveled a unique path to get here.” And here the issue starts. It is the ‘other celebrity-owned brands’ part. Reynolds is nothing like that. I saw the Clooney Nespresso advertisements and they are nice. Reynolds is just plain bonkers. for some reason he gets a message across and even as we have no idea what the message (a nice example is the Vasectomy mix) was. The advertisement (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtRl9HZGZEE) is bonkers in many ways, but at the end you have a smile on your face and Aviation Gin is on your mind. I don’t even like gin and I am still on the train to buy a bottle. That is not simple skill, it is more and Ryan Reynolds has it. There is every chance he is not in it alone, t might have come from brainstorming, team effort, but he is presenting the part that makes us want a Mint Mobile sim or an Aviation Gin bottle. That is marketing gold and through this brands are elevated. Even after one advertisement I reckon that Nuvei is destined for greatness. One ad did this, one ad showed us an alternative to all the other brands in the business and the other brands have nothing to show us that they are worthy. That is marketing taken to a next level and one actor has figured it out. 

The other celebrities have nothing on him, not even George Clooney with his Nespresso (who is an amazing actor in his own right). CBC touches on that in the end with “celebrity entrepreneurship ties back to the star’s connection with their audience, their ability to tell a story and keep people engaged.” It is the ability to connect to an audience through storytelling and that is the part that Ryan Reynolds has down to a fine art and he has created the wealth to show this. Not merely HIS wealth, until Ryan Reynolds got involved, who knew anything about Mint Mobile? Perhaps in Canada, but within 6 months everyone on the planet knew what Mint Mobile was and that takes marketing gravitas. As such he is not an unlikely mogul, in the end he might have been an unlikely actor who got into the big leagues. Yet both markets need a genuine person and in this Ryan delivered. We can only wait and see what comes next. If the Ottawa Senators come through for Ryan, Vancouver will be in mourning for a long time as he sets sail to Ontario and the capital of Canada, optionally listening to Tusk (Fleetwood Mac) all the way. I am merely curious on what else he will do, because when it comes to business and business intelligence he is the most real person I have seen in decades and I have seen plenty since 1991.